Indian Rita

[Shovelnose]

A few nonsense phone pictures of a fish I have been after for a long time now, Rita kuturnee. A single specimen is now getting acclimatised to its new (and hopefully long term!!!) home. I will take the specimen out for 'proper' pictures in a few days.

[Shovelnose]

I had picked up a couple of Rita that were offered as R.rita. The provenance was of great interest to me as these were from Arunachal Pradesh (north eastern India) and fish from here are seldom available in the trade. Also, Arunachal Pradesh shares a border with Myanmar which made me hope (a little too much, perhaps) that I would end up with R.sacerdotum.

Good friend,fellow hobbyist and fantastic photographer Hayath had dropped in a few days back and clicked these grey jobs, here they are.

The smaller specimen.



The larger specimen.




A non catfish.



Schismatorhynchos nukta

[minipol]

Wow stunning catfish, they look great! Seems like a super find

[Shovelnose]

Finally, after a very long wait and a 1700 km trip. Both specimens came in starved after an excruciating journey and have been bulking up on Massivore, clams and Kens Fish Feed. I don't know if it's because I am seeing these after long but their dorsal fins look way longer than I can remember.

This is the first time I've kept two specimens and there has been some acrobatic sparring. I've had to rearrange the driftwood for close to two weeks till they could 'mark' their territories and it was finally accepted. These fish are finicky when it comes to choosing their 'lair'.

Incredible how bagrids work. Fourty hour train journey, rough handling, both bags leaking and they start feeding as soon as they were released into quarantine and then started attacking each other as well. Fishkeeping feels normal again.

Ps: Ten years later, I still have to clean the front glass.

[bekateen]

Ps: Ten years later, I still have to clean the front glass.

And that's all that matters!

Congratulations on getting them set up. Good luck with them.

Cheers, Eric

[Viktor Jarikov]

Awesome! Very special fish. Great job, Balaji. Are they the same as those photographed in 2017?

[Shovelnose]

Congratulations on getting them set up. Good luck with them.

Cheers, Eric

Thanks Eric.

Awesome! Very special fish. Great job, Balaji. Are they the same as those photographed in 2017?

Thanks Viktor. Nope, that specimen went to a friend and later jumped out before it could be shipped to me. It was fairly long lived, got it in 2008-09.

The fish in the video were collected in June 2020. Air freight was mental (almost doubled) and trains were stopped, both due to Covid. Waited a few months and got them shipped by train.