Australian Catfish

[Sponske]

Just curious....maybe something for the future.......

Are there Australian Catfish??

And are they easy to keep??

[Silurus]

Australian catfishes belong to only two families: the Plotosidae and the Ariidae. They are not too difficult to keep.

[sidguppy]

except that quite a number are true marine fish, and keeping marine fish is much more difficult than freshwater species; for example the waterchanges and keeping the salinity on a constant level without too much fluctuation.

much more expensive too.....

[Sponske]

i see...

it's the freshwater species i'm intrested in...........

[Silurus]

All of the freshwater catfish in Australia are either plotosids or ariids, but they rarely show up in the trade.

[Sponske]

so the chance of buying me a few(2) in belgium will be small, i presume....

Which catfish would be suitable to keep in a 6ft australian tank (with rainbowfish like boesemani ,trifasciata and duboulayi)

[Silurus]

Smaller Neosilurus species (such as N. brevidorsalis) would be ideal, although you can probably fit larger species like

Neosilurus ater

as well.

The ariids usually get too big, plus they're more likely to eat the rainbows.

[sidguppy]

I'm not sure about this, but isn't it next to impossible to get ANY animal out of Oz, due to several laws that prevent exporting wildcaught native Australian animals?

most Rainbowfish or "Oz-looking"-Gobies we see for example are from Papua New Guinea, or descendants from wildcaughts, caught when these laws weren't in place, yet.
(wich explains the sorry state some species are in, for example Chlamydogobius eremius).

There must be plenty very cool Ozzie fish, next to Plotosidae and Ariidae all kindfs of Galaxias species, Rhaphidocentrus, Pseudomugil and the like.

but despite me being in the hobby for 30 years now, I've never seen any......
it's the same with reptiles; the Morelia-pythons, Guanna's (monitorlizards) or Blue Tongue Scincs we see here are captive-breds or smuggled in......

[CoolTcat]

The sp that has been most commonly available here is Tandanus tandanus, he's lovely with beautiful soulful eyes but gets too big too fast and then what to do with him?
He's very tasty but not after you have been talking to him!
Recently Neosilurus hyrtlii have been about in the trade, and as these only commonly get to 20cm (34cm max) they are a better choice for Rainbows, (as long as they were not too small). The common name is Hyrtl's Tandan. Maybe you will end up with them there, I only know about getting plants in, which is hard enough.
Also they are a nice pale silvery colour and quite active. He has a wide distribution so should be pretty adaptable.
Lots of other great fish here, but my alltime favourites are the brackish Mugilogobius platynotus, the Flat Backed Goby. These are so special as to be almost a catfish.