Port hoplos - temp and growth rate?

[nikirushka]

I've got half a dozen juvenile port hoplos, in a 32" tank at present.

I've had them before but we're going back a good few years and my last ones were larger when I got them, so my first question is roughly how fast do they grow from small? My guys are all 1.5-1.75" (look like they've come from a recent captive bred batch, there were a good few dozen in the shop tank). I've had them a week so I would guess they're 6-8 weeks old ish, going from what info I've found so far but I can't find anything on growth rate beyond that size.

Second question - what's their optimum temperature? I've got tham at 25C atm but of course they have a wide range of tolerance - when I had them before they were in a large mixed tank of cats and barbs (with clown, spanner, gold and lemon fin barbs, p. pardalis and h. punctatum plecs, and pearl, sun, cory and SA, siamese and jelly bumblebee cats) so I just set it to 25C to cover everyone.

This time around I'm wanting to do a more specialised setup - they will be moving into a 30g tank when they're a little bigger (it's housing goldfish atm but they'll be going outside soon) and I'm going to do an biotope setup I think. My plan is to look for optimum temp and decor for these guys then look at fish from the same regions for tankmates (and I will have a much bigger tank long term, just on the lookout for one now).

[Bas Pels]

What are port hoplo's?

Do remember this is an international forum, ans common names are usually very local. Your name Port Hoplo could very easily be used in the USA too - for another species

I think fish which belong to the subfamily Callichthyinae - all often referred to as Hoplo's.

Still this group is rather large.

You could be referring to

Megalechis picta

or

Megalechis thoracata

but also to

Hoplosternum littorale

or any of the other species.

The three I mentioned are just the most common. Their preferences are also not identical.

If you click on the name, you are referred to their pages

[Marc van Arc]

Probably porthole catfish,

Dianema longibarbis

[nikirushka]

Apologies, I mean megalechis thoracata