Getting Some GIANT catfishes

Phatboy · Post by **Phatboy** » 03 May 2004, 02:12

I will be receiving the following fishes on Tuesday, May 4th,

Paulice lutkeni
Brachyplatystoma juruense
Sorubimichthys planiceps
Pterodoras rivasi
Pseudoplatystoma fasciatum sp. (could be a P. coruscans)

now, I'd like all of those who have owned any of them to give me some information of them.

activeness
aggressiveness
growth rates
special cares (if any)
anything

Thanks in advance.

Dave Rinaldo · Post by **Dave Rinaldo** » 03 May 2004, 03:12

Hi!

(Paulicea lutkeni) http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/Species ... me=zungaro

The biggest mistake I've made puchasing a fish. It's cute when small but will grow quickly. The one I have is now 2', still growing,and will eat or kill anything else placed with it. I'm thinking I'll donate it to the local college for dissection practice! It's in a 120G and I want the tank back!

catfishcrazy · Post by **catfishcrazy** » 03 May 2004, 09:29

Special Care>>>>>

A swimmimng pool to keep them in!! That is a lot of very large catfish!

Phatboy · Post by **Phatboy** » 03 May 2004, 21:47

thanx. ;)

Stevetd · Post by **Stevetd** » 05 May 2004, 12:01

Isn't the sequence of your fish order then care enquiries a bit back-to-front?

general-sherman · Post by **general-sherman** » 05 May 2004, 23:44

They are too big to be kept in captivity. No matter how big the largest tank/pond you can afford is...it will be too small, similar to keeping a large breed dog in a rabbit hutch. Get yourself some Pimelodus ornatus or Sorubim lima, much less cruel, they adapt better to captivity.

Phatboy · Post by **Phatboy** » 08 May 2004, 04:47

the planiceps passed away prior to shipping.

so he didn't make it.

i would have to disagree about the above fish being too big to be kept in captivity.

the juruense catfish grows barely over 24", i've never seen one in home aquariums over 24".

the Pterodoras rivasi only gets around 18" or so.

although wild tiger shovelnose are known to grow over 4ft, in home aquariums, they barely gets over 36".

the jau catfish grows so slow (as little as 6" per year) that i'll be forever for them to get pass 3ft.

all that aside, i'm not looking for info on how big they get. i want to hear some experiences like the first reply.

general-sherman · Post by **general-sherman** » 10 May 2004, 12:50

Depends what you call cruel I guess...I liken it to keeping an eagle in a birdcage, or a (small) whale in a swimming pool. I can say I have personally seen 5.5ft captive Sorubimichthys planiceps, and a 3ft+ Pseudoplatystoma fasciatum. The 10' diameter pond they were in seemed way too small.

waterlife · Post by **waterlife** » 20 May 2004, 05:57

I often wonder if this board truly consists of hobbyists or if they are just animal rights activists masquerading as such. I guess we will never really know, will we...

coelacanth · Post by **coelacanth** » 20 May 2004, 09:17

waterlife wrote:I often wonder if this board truly consists of hobbyists or if they are just animal rights activists masquerading as such. I guess we will never really know, will we...

Feel free to expand on this statement with details of your own ethical viewpoint and the development process involved, references, examples etc. etc.

Post by **Dinyar** » 20 May 2004, 14:25

I for one have no problem with the notion of holding irresponsible hobbyists in tiny windowless cells wearing nothing but pink panties on their heads. Since H. sapiens is an animal species, I'm obviously not a believer in animal rights.

lucy · Post by **lucy** » 20 May 2004, 16:47

actually i agree im afraid ..
i would desperately love a rtc and i mean desperately, and yeah i see them in lfs for Â£35 or there abouts at 4" and i drool over them and yes they are little and cute
but.... my house aint big enough for anything bigger than a 6ft tank, ok i could buy it and keep it til it outgrew the tank and then try and donate it to a shop or an aquarium or anyone that would take it like some ppl seem to do
but i dont , i control myself and walk away...
because i know it would break my heart (and possibly my tank)
its a living thing not some sort of extreme fish status symbol

Taratron · Post by **Taratron** » 20 May 2004, 20:23

Amen, Dinyar, amen! That is the truth of the truth, that.

fishman33437 · Post by **fishman33437** » 23 May 2004, 15:11

Ted (waterlife)...very strong reply. Im on your side. Ive got a 400g, 240g, 180g and a 220g with all types of big cats. If you all want to go to the animal cruelty card, get on the PETA website. I have a 12"+ juruense that sits and does nothing all day, the P. lutkeni I had did grow super slowly and was very inactive, the tiger shovelnose and planiceps are very lazy as well. They only ones youve really got to worry about are the bigger pims (yes, I do know that the above fish are in Pimelodae). Examples: RTC, L. pictus, longibarbus, Callophysus macropterus and the like. They are very active and will smoke the sedentary shovelnose types and eat everything before they can eat too. I have a L. pictus with some peacock bass in a 220g, the juruense and planiceps are in a 180g with some prochilodus, I have a Hemibagrus wyckii in a 75g by himself (will move to a bigger tank soon), L. longibarbus in the 240g with trimacs, tetracanthus and motaguense and a 30" RTC in the 400g with a 20" dovii. Just make sure the tanks are big enough and youll be fine with everything listed.

Rita · Post by **Rita** » 23 May 2004, 15:42

Keeping big fish is a redneck, "guy" thing. In my experience, it's the guys who are most insecure about their masculinity who are most likely to keep big fish (usually in tanks that are too small).

Rita

kurtz · Post by **kurtz** » 23 May 2004, 16:37

well i am not a red neck but i do have a red tail cat in a 360 gallon tank 8 x 3 x 2(tall) . the people that you should be unhappy about should be the importers of these big cats not guys like us that are trying hard and spending alot of money to properly house these guys . when i got my red tail he was in a 55 gallon tank and 18 inches long . i felt sad for him so i bought it . he is getting close to 24 inches now and i am in the process of building an indoor pond in my garage . i did not order this thing from south america and i cannot send him back so what should i do kill it?, give it to someone else? or continue with the pond in the garage . and telling me that if i dont buy it they wont import it anymore will not fly with me . what needs to be done is a ban on large fish with licencing available if you have proof of proper care.

Post by **Dinyar** » 23 May 2004, 17:58

That makes sense, Kurtz. I share your view that the keeping of large cats like red tails should be regulated in the same that the keeping of large cats like lions and tigers is.

Rita was wrong: not everyone who keeps very large catfish is a redneck. But people like you who are willing to go the distance to look after their large pets are in the minority.

Dinyar

PS: Have you ever read Heart of Darkness? A character called Kurtz plays an important and memorable role in the novel.

fishman33437 · Post by **fishman33437** » 24 May 2004, 01:24

Its funny to hear women talk about guys and their 'experiences' with guys....or write about them and their 'insecurities'. I am on the same page as Kurtz.... Its got nothing to do with the redneck thing. It has everything to do with the catfishes having personality that can rival some dogs (and women, I suppose). Memo to Rita, "im sure there is some 'men are from mars, women are from venus' chatroom that you can expound upon your witty philosophy about men and big fish"....go find it.

coelacanth · Post by **coelacanth** » 24 May 2004, 12:28

Disregarding the last two posts (they were both unnecessary and will hopefully be removed by the posters once they have thought about it to save the moderators a job), yes, there should be some legislation on the matter of their import (this could be done using customer power, but as half-decent aquarium shops can be difficult to find for some people, and we quite often build a fairly cordial relationship with the owners of said shops, it would be difficult to give someone a mouthful about getting in a RTC and then boycotting the outlet or similar when you know that the next good LFS is a further 50 miles away). The problem with legislation is that it would almost certainly be wrongly targeted and poorly applied (as has been seen in the US with Snakeheads).
Some people are willing and able to provide suitable long-term housing for large Catfish. The same is true of large Reptiles. Some people are willing to house Pythons/Monitors/Iguanas etc. in housing that would not look out of place in a good zoo, but given the numbers of young that are sold and then either discarded or passed from person-to-person you have to wonder whether the right people are very much in the minority.
On the subject of large Catfish not moving around very much, perhaps if they were actually able to it might be possible to observe different behaviour patterns? When housed in large enclosures both Sorubimichthys and Pseudoplatystoma will cruise round making full use of available space. Immediately after a large meal they will sit and digest, but only for a day or so and then they are up again.
I'd still welcome anyone who keeps mega-Cats to post details of how they developed suitable housing protocols, including references, examples etc. etc.
I know there are people who have gone to the effort required to build large indoor ponds (with some very healthy-looking fish from what I remember of the pictures), how did you work out the dimensions? Is there anyone who has a home aquarium holding the 1000 gallons+ required to house an adult RTC or similar?

the P. lutkeni I had did grow super slowly and was very inactive

Where is this fish now and how big is it?

fishman33437 · Post by **fishman33437** » 25 May 2004, 04:07

Coelacanth, The Paulicea you asked about is in an indoor Koi pond (its about a foot long last I saw) at The Barrier Reef in Boca Raton, FL. Call them and verify if you like....if I didnt return it to the place i purchased it, he wouldve been a meal for a L. pictus that continued to eye it hungrily. Ill remove my post above. The fact still remains that certain folks, as you said, will purchase the correct enclosures for these animals and certain ones will not. Considering Im continually purchasing 8ft+ tanks to house these animals should tell Rita that Im not the one to go after...he/she should go after Mr aquarist who jams 4 oscars and a pacu in a 55g. Just because Im new to the site doesnt mean Im new to caring for these fish. Im not sure how big your tanks are, but everything I wrote above is what Ive seen personally....and I have above average sized tanks. Put a juvenile Learius sp(or RTC, Hemibagrus, Callophysus) in with a similar sized shovelnose type and youll end up with an expensive meal or punching bag within a year. They arent aggressive feeders, they dont grow as fast and they arent nearly as territorial as the others. The purpose of this website is to educate aquarist with each others experiences. The folks who want to start expounding on the virtues of animal cruelty and the like should be smart enough to figure out who is cruel and who is not.

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 29 May 2004, 17:33

Any of you big catfish guys care to post some pictures of your set-ups. I keep hearing about indoor ponds and the like, but only one (very informative) post has carried them. A picture paints a thousand words etc. I also wonder why the faster water big catfishes are less active in captivity than similarly sized slow water ones.

Jools

kurtz · Post by **kurtz** » 29 May 2004, 23:15

as soon as mine is done and the cats are in the water i will post pics . probably wont be for a couple of months though due to pond will need to cycle but i will try to post construction pics when i get started on it . the foot print of the pond is going to be 10 feet long , 5 feet wide , and 3 feet deep. should make my red tail , psuedodoras niger , and marmaratus cat very happy. not sure what the gallons for this size would be but i imagine at least 700 gallons

velocity · Post by **velocity** » 06 Jun 2004, 18:52

I shall also post a picture of my outdoor pond. Its going to house some large catfish like an RTC and a TSN. by the way its over 2,000 gallons so they will retire here in this pond.

general-sherman · Post by **general-sherman** » 10 Jun 2004, 00:41

Express concern for an animal and you're an animal rights activist. Keep a giant fish in a small tank and you're a "hobbyist"?

When you're talking about fish that grow 3'+, 0-500gal is small. 1000gal is an ok minimum...as a starting point.

fishman33437 · Post by **fishman33437** » 10 Jun 2004, 01:36

Mustve had a room full of monkeys working overtime to figure that out. Good quote....steal it from the Greenpeace employee manual? Anyone keeping any 'domesticated' animal, bird, fish, or anything else in the animalia kingdom is not providing enough space for them to roam, swim, fly etc if you compare them to the wild version of the same animal. I have a basenji (dog from Zaire-still found wild today) as a pet....does this mean that since Im not providing the animal with the same territory that it would normally have in the wild that Im doing her an injustice and am violating this animal's rights? Are you kidding me?

At first, I thought this site to be interesting, with very intelligent 'hobbyists' that could share their past experiences with others. This thought has now changed to me believing this is simply a cover for PETA.

Lets put it this way to all of you that consider yourselves above a hobbyist-aka, animal rights activist. If you are keeping any sort of animal differently (in any shape or form) than what that animal would be accustomed to in the wild, then you are also being cruel to this animal. Whether its keeping a dog in an apt, a 30" catfish in a 10' tank, your kids gerbil in a 20g aquarium, a cat indoors in any home, or a bird in a cage.....its the same thing. You are being cruel...in the most mundane sense of the word.

What is worse, me putting an RTC in a 400g tank or your typical moron buying one because its pretty and jamming it in a 55? I agree, there should be permits if you want it done right....but there arent, and whether you or I buy big cats...theyll still be imported.

I admit to keeping fish in fish tanks, enough with the cruelty garbage. GO PREACH TO SOMEONE ELSE.....err keep preaching here-I wont be watching....Im done on the forums.....

BTW-I do understand what domesticated means-the question is: is domestication cruel?

general-sherman · Post by **general-sherman** » 10 Jun 2004, 03:17

Being from Australia I have no idea what PETA is...so most of your analogies? insults? are lost on me. I do however know who greenpeace are and what they stand for.
The part I find interesting is that you mention "animal rights" and "conservation" like they are BAD things. Maybe you have seen a different definition of domesticated, but I thought all domesicated animals had the right to proper housing? Just because they're captive doesn't mean we don't have to provide the things they need to feel comfortable?
I agree with many things in the above post...and I also admit to keeping fish. Ever seen a 6'x2'x2' (180 gal) setup as a South American blackwater biotope? With no fish over 5-6"? It looks a lot better then a medium size tank with a big cramped fish. And when you take into consideration wild habits and habitat this is pretty close to a "wild" territory, yes?
I also admit to keeping big cats...I have a 15cm Bagrichthys macracanthus (Black lancer catfish) in a 4'x2'x2' Southeast Asian "large river" biotope. I'm hoping I can grow him to the maximum size of 20cm and transfer him to a 5'x30"x30" I'm building at the moment.

fishman33437 · Post by **fishman33437** » 11 Jun 2004, 01:53

Well, actually the true definition of 'domesticate' is: "to tame (wild animals) and breed for human use." So housing and feeding is certainly part of the domestication process. In fact, a domesticated animal relies on humans for these items. But that is my point. Whats worse, keeping a dog in an apartment, a cat cooped up indoors or a fish in an aquarium. Like Ive said in many posts on this site-my 10' tank is certainly not big enough to keep the RTC I have in the future. But I can actually afford a 1000g tank and have the space in my home to place this item. Also, I would rather not just get the 'top view' of my pet.

Animal conservation and animal rights are certainly at the top of my list for important issues. In fact, I rescinded my donation to the United Way because the American Humane Society is not one of the options to give money to through this organization. ( If you dont know what the United Way, American Humane Society are, then while you are looking up PETA on google.com, take a look for these as well)

If you think your biotope 180g, 100g tanks are enough for the black lancer cat and 5"+ SA fish, then think again. Compare it to the wild and it doesnt compare in size. Oh and by the way, when is a 400g a medium sized tank? Im sure you have more fish inches per square foot in either of your biotope tanks that I do in my catfish tank. Which is worse? How about going to the lower portion of the site and preaching there instead of wasting everyones time and energy with this. Obviously a number of folks want to know how to care for these animals correctly and you arent adding value to the topic. Im sure most serious aquarists are very interested in animal conservation and doing what is right for the animals..... so save it for a different 'chat room' or website.

general-sherman · Post by **general-sherman** » 11 Jun 2004, 10:15

That was no fish over 6". Not 5"+.
Apparently you belive small fish (tetras, ancistrus & corydoras sp. dwarf cichlids) hold a similar territory to large Pimelodid predators? Simply not true. I don't need to compare my tanks to the wild, I only need to compare them to the habitat and territory my fish would have in the wild. In that respect I've done a pretty good job.
Now compare your' 400gal or 1000gal to the territory a large catfish predator would hold in the wild. Doesn't really add up does it? And I was trying to add value to the topic by giving prospective owners of the fish the right advice. At no point did I preach anything.

Stevetd · Post by **Stevetd** » 11 Jun 2004, 16:22

People have opinions. Therefore, there will always be dispute over subjects such as this.
Learn to live with that.
I can't see what the problems with Fishman is, considering an admittance that the 400 gallon tank will not be big enough when fully grown? Let's be fair that this person has already bought a 10ft tank to house these animals. How many people on here will join in with the arguments, stick the knife in, then go tend to their 55 gallon?

Please have enough common sense to respect other peoples opinions, sure - give your own, but no-one has the right to claim their comments are 'right' (this feels like high school??)

Besides, reading threads such as this will potentially discourage other people from using the bulletin board, hardly a great advert for the site!

Steve

general-sherman · Post by **general-sherman** » 11 Jun 2004, 23:01

Good point (s) Steve. By "right" advice, I just meant "proper" advice...most of what I "preached" I read in a few books by David Sands, redtails are a-bit scarce in OZ. I didn't really mean I was right simply because I said I was giving the right advice...

Its becoming a familiar story on this site: People wanting advice on [large cats name here], and after being told what most people believe is a fair tank/indoor pond size, these slanging matches occur. I just find it amusing that the only defence these people can come up with is that this site must be a front for [ecological or ethically minded groups name here], because they can't attack the minimum tank sizes or the advice "we" give.

Getting Some GIANT catfishes

Getting Some GIANT catfishes

Captivity?

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Catfish

Re: Catfish

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Hmmm

Hmm...