Isn't it funny we all like catfish.

[grokefish]

This just dawned on me as I watched an episode of the blue planet with David attenborough for the millionth time.
I first became obsessed with catfish when I first saw a corydoras, it's behaviour and its armour just appealed to me for some reason. Anyway I was watching this episode and it was the deep sea one and I thought to myself 'with all these weird and wonder full fish around, why catfish?'
When I was a kid I would look in streams and lakes and swamps and imagine I was in the Amazon/Africa/Asia and what catfish would live in that stream lake or swamp not any other fish, just which catfish ( I still do it now.....sshhhhh don't tell anyone!)
They are after all just fish.
Just thought I would put this out there and see what comes of it, lol.

[Jools]

I get asked the question "why catfish" all the time. I don't really know for sure but I suspect the undernoted might explain it a bit.

“A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.”


― Albert Camus

Jools

[amiidae]

UNEXPLAINABLE.... LOL !!

[unblinded]

I blame it on Synodontis multipunctatus for me. I had always kept cats as a "scavenger" or a "bottom feeder". I had seen pictures of multipunctatus 100 times before. When I first saw them in a group of about 15 in a friend's tank, that was when the addiction started. I had to have some and when I first saw granulosus, I had to have one of those. Then it just grew from there. Now, much like grokefish, when I see a body of water on TV or in person, all I can think is "I wonder what catfish live there".

[JamesFish]

It could be considered a personality trait. They appeal to something in each of us that we all have in common.

Recent discovery of the Otocinclus has added a new favourite for me. All be it temperamental one as the acquiring of a group of 6 is now 4 and had to purchase allot of live plant to settle them.

Started with the humble bronze and albino for me. The ones I started with are a hardy edition to any tank and have special place for me. As I now have 3 species of cory sharing I decided its enough in that tank time to do something different in my 2ft once I get it back from my invasion of fry.

I suspect also a good many of us are loach fans as well as catfish.

[Viktor Jarikov]

That's simple. They have whiskers.

UNEXPLAINABLE.... LOL !!

Hey, Ben, you are a resident alien on PCF!

Well, me too now except it appears I went the other way - first catfish, then others.

[exasperatus2002]

Not sure if it was bronze corys that mom kept when I was a boy or the julii cory's my science teacher kept in school or the bullheads I'd catch down in the creek. But I've always loved them as far as I can remember. Must be the whiskers... right?

[JamesFish]

I am not a cat as in felion person so I suspect it is not the whiskers. Perhaps its the fact they are largely under valued in terms of appreciation and show real character when you look for it.

[Marc van Arc]

Not into them for their whiskers, but more because of their shape. I also like (older) cars, and I tend to transfer them into (cat-)fishes.
Examples:

Panhard Dyna 1959

The attachment Panhard_DynaZ_1959_front.jpg is no longer available

Citroen DS

Ultimate Centromochlus/Tatia/Auchenipterichthys car

Citroen CX Break

The goddess, aka pike and tiburon (Spanish, meaning shark)

[Marc van Arc]

One more:

Panhard PL 17

auchenipterid resting

[Durlänger]

Did you put this one back into the river after taking pic? Or did you just want a pic with the habitat in the back?

Citroen CX Break

1976_cx_break_2.jpg

[Dave Rinaldo]

Before keeping fish, I had dreams of a lot of tanks with catfish!

Now my dreams are about 'did I turn off the water'?

[Marc van Arc]

Did you put this one back into the river after taking pic? Or did you just want a pic with the habitat in the back?

The latter - otherwise it would rust. Besides, it wasn't mine

[nicofish]

I was trying to get out of the hobby because I was going to college. From about age 3-10 I was completely obsessed with insects. To the point where I refused to read fiction. I started keeping fish when I was ~13 I started with cichlids, while I still like cichlids I found that I liked my bottom feeders more.

I got hooked (pun was unavoidable) Thanks to platydoras armatulus I bought a pair when they were less than half an inch long. They are still in my 75 gallon and they now measure 6+ inches. Then I remember buying A. pectinifrons. I never saw this fish as it just buried itself under some driftwood but just knowing it was there was cool for me (it buried itself too well and got stuck and I found its skeleton)

I was actually thinking the same thing last night after I finished setting up a 10 gal. I sat back to look at it, and I can say from your average aquarium keepers perspective it is ugly.
http://imgur.com/sWqTnkC
and most likely you will never see the residents

Ultimately I think liking catfish has something to do with physical attributes, and those that we ascribe to them. I tend to regard my two Raphael cats as thinkers (suppose this would be romanticizing it a bit.

I like their appearance and the way they act. For example guppies have low appeal to me because I consider them to be dumb.

I am a collector, so part of the appeal is the variety "Gotta cach em all" Pokemon syndrome(as I like to call it). I would be willing to bet that this show has had a significant effect on the people of my generation. I think it would make an interesting paper "Pokemon and generation Z".

[antongmillard]

That's the reason we are all here.

[naturalart]

Three words: Ameiurus melas, shark-like and unusual.

[grokefish]

Marc you nutter that's awesome!
More please!

Also you on facebook dude? I need to converse with you about something!

[Jools]

Also you on facebook dude?

Marc is not on Facebook.

Jools

[syno321]

While mucking (fishing, looking for interesting creatures, live bait,etc.) around our local river with friends as a lad I spotted a black Bullhead catfish caring for a school of ~100+ fry in water about a foot deep very close to shore. Watching the 1 foot long adult care for the young, who were exact miniature replicas of the adult, had me enraptured for what seemed like forever. Those images are still very fresh in my mind. I believe that was the start of it.

[grokefish]