New group of 6 Microglanis iheringi... or are they? SPAWNED!

[Shane]

Eric,
Free online is... Illustrated Catalog of Fish in the “Aguaro-Guariquito” National Park

Antonio Machado-Allison, Roberto de la Fuente e Ivan Mikolji

It is on Mikolji's site for free. Huge resource for any aquarist. Page 411 shows "M. iheringi" from this drainage in the southern llanos.

-Shane

2018

[bekateen]

Thanks, Jools and Shane!

Jools, I've got a couple of pic-worthy in this group, if they recover from the disease they have, which appears to be ich. Will keep updating.

Shane, thanks for the reference. This is a great picture and based on what I've seen is probably the closest photo to real iheringi. I think I have a few of my smaller fish which come very close to this image, although not exactly the same (here's a screen grab from my 2/26 YouTube video).

From my 2/26 YouTube video

Cheers, Eric

[MarcW]

Looking good Eric, lets hope the owner of that store doesn't keep thinking, these Microglanis are top sellers, I'd better get more in, or you may need to start filling sinks, and baths to keep them in!

[fishguy1978]

In total, I'm up to 58 bumblebees.

And I thought a group of 5-6 would be good

[bekateen]

Looking good Eric, lets hope the owner of that store doesn't keep thinking, these Microglanis are top sellers, I'd better get more in, or you may need to start filling sinks, and baths to keep them in!

Thanks Marc. Indeed, I believe the shop knows I'm a nutjob. I told him there was really nothing new in the group, and that I'll hold off on more until something different arrrives. Of course, that could drive his orders two opposite directions.

And I thought a group of 5-6 would be good

Let's hope I have a pair in my combined group.

Cheers, Eric

[Jools]

58? That's a hive!

Jools

[bekateen]

58? That's a hive!
Jools

Yeah! A community at the least, practically an ecosystem!

Right now the first 18 (the largest fish) are in one 10 gal tank, the second 26 (the really small fish) are in another 10 gal tank, and the latest 14 are in a 5 gal bucket for QT. As everyone grows, that's going to be unsustainable. Also, my ultimate plan is to break them out of their "purchase groups" and sort them into phenotypes, so that similar fish are together in one tank, regardless of size or time with me. That's to avoid any possibility that if they are different spp, I will reduce chances for hybridization (IF spawning ever occurs).

In short, I'll need as many tanks as I have potential species. Of course, if I inadvertently sort sexually dimorphic males from females, that will suck.

Cheers,

[bekateen]

@Shane, interesting development from that last reference you gave me. I contacted the author and asked permission to post the photo. When I drew his attention to the page, he immediately recognized that the photo shown was not correct and he sent me the right photo, with permission to share. Here it is, from the Rio Caura.

Rio Caura. Photo, Antonio Machado-Allison & Barry Chernoff

With any dorsal view photo, it's difficult to get a good perspective of the subdorsal saddle, but some details are visible in the photo:

• the anterior edge is roughly vertical, and the posterior edge is angled, not vertical. (Red)
• there is a pale irregular spot in the middle of the saddle. (Blue)
• there is a dark line crossing through both the pale spot and the posterior edge of the saddle. (Green)

But the first trait that caught my eye was the intact dark bridge dividing the pale nuchal band mid-sagittally. I confess I'm fixated on that trait because so few of my fish have it, and I've never seen it mentioned in descriptions, but at this time I cannot attribute that feature to only one of the "types" (species?) in my group of fishes. So maybe that seemingly random presence among dark- and light-bodied specimens indicates this is merely phenotypic variation.

Next Fall, when my incoming grad student will begin the genetic studies, can't get here soon enough.

Cheers, Eric

[fishguy1978]

Now I am curious what the sides of mine look like. I also have access to another that is the size of my thumb. I will post pic's first chance I get.

[fishguy1978]

Here is my one M. sp.

Top

Left

Right

[bekateen]

It looks great!

[fishguy1978]

Thanks, I enjoyed watching your videos of all those cats en masse. Look forward to the updates.

[bekateen]

Just for fun...

Watch after edibles: Microglanis bumblebee catfish under red night light

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

That video is really interesting!

I have custom red lights (660nm LEDs) on my tank for nocturnal viewing, but still the single Microglanis I have is absolutely photophobic. I can sometimes catch a brief glimpse of it diving for cover only if I sneak up on the tank and use a flashlight after ALL the lights in the tank and room are out. I might see the fish once every 6 months if I'm lucky.

But here in your video, with them in a large group, they seem to be acting a lot more like perugiae. Still nocturnal, but that's infinitely more outgoing than I'd ever expect given my experience so far. It seems that large groups definitely help!

[bekateen]

Did a check on the fish today. Biggest fish was pushing 70mm SL. Still a bit shocked they haven't spawned yet.

[Jools]

They look in top condition. How do you know they've not spawned?

Jools

[bekateen]

I suppose they could have, but if they did, they've eaten every last fry and egg. Perhaps to that end, a few weeks ago I looked in the tank of the smaller fish and I saw what I believed to be an egg on a spawning mop. I looked again and still saw it. I looked a third time with a flashlight, err, torch, and still saw it. I ran to get my phone and when I returned it was gone. This occurred in daytime, so I doubt any fish swam out to eat it in less than a minute. But I tore that tank apart and never found any egg. Perhaps I mistook a fragment of decaying leaf (with its transparency) for the egg. There are always leaf fragments stuck in the mop and in the past I have mistaken them momentarily for eggs, but upon inspection could see they were not. The bigger mystery is how could I have looked at this with a torch and still mistaken it for an egg?

Cheers, Eric

[fishguy1978]

Did a check on the fish today. Biggest fish was pushing 70mm SL. Still a bit shocked they haven't spawned yet.

Love those happy little faces

[bekateen]

Today I found what I thought was an egg on a spawning mop. The object looked like an egg, was about the size of an egg (although bigger than what I'd expect from such small fish) and it was attached to the spawning mop like an egg might be. But I discovered the object was essentially a hollow bubble of some hard outer material, and when I released it from the mop, it floated. Perhaps it is some odd contaminant from a recent meal of frozen blood worms? (I had just fed a frozen meal to the fish 30 minutes before). Anyway, it's not a Microglanis egg

Also, I wanted to give better (although not more in focus, since these fish don't stop moving) views of my fish to a few people, so I'll upload them here for easy access.

Cheers, Eric

[Woodh]

Did you ever solve the egg mystery?

[bekateen]

No, other than no fry were fine yet. I suspect it was a plant seed coat.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Found a seller in Iquitos offering "Microglanis poecilus."These are collected somewhere in Peru. They look a lot like M. poecilus, but not exactly the same in my opinion. So I'm referring to them as

Microglanis aff_poecilus

.

I bought 25, but I think I got a few more. The seller said they gave me extra. My problem is that I need to get them home to the USA. Hopefully all ship well.

More than anything else (other than they DON'T look like some kind of inheringi type, LOL), what I'm digging is the dramatic upper lobe extension on the caudal fin! Every specimen I got has it, to some extent. Beautiful! I wonder if the extent of the trait is sexually dimorphic?

Cheers, Eric

P.S., I hesitated before adding this post to my ongoing thread about Microglanis iheringi and what is/isn't the real thing. I considered starting a new thread entitled, "New group of 30 Microglanis poecilus... or are they?", but I thought better of that.

P.P.S., now I'm up to nearly 90 Microglanis, probably constituting 4 species.

Cheers

[fishguy1978]

Wow, if you don't get some spawning action with those numbers you might need to add some more.

[fishguy1978]

Dan's Fish out of Cheyenne has Pseudomystus heokhuii
If you are interested. I have ordered from him and am pleased with everything he has shipped.
https://www.dansfish.com/product.detail/4104

[bekateen]

Thanks for the info. Someday, yes, but not now. I'm still taking fish from Peru.

Cheers, Eric

[fishguy1978]

Thanks for the info. Someday, yes, but not now. I'm still taking fish from Peru.

Cheers, Eric

I didn't look these up when I posted so I didn't realize they were the Asian variant of bumblebee catfish.

[bekateen]

I didn't look these up when I posted so I didn't realize they were the Asian variant of bumblebee catfish.

Not a problem. Catfish are kinda like Pokemon... Gotta catch 'em all!

Cheers, Eric

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

I assume you've seen this breeding log which was posted the other day, https://www.planetcatfish.com/common/my ... d=303#1653 ?

[bekateen]

I assume you've seen this breeding log which was posted the other day, https://www.planetcatfish.com/common/my ... d=303#1653 ?

Thanks. I didn't see the blog post, no. But I know this individual and we've been talking since August after her first spawn. She's got it down!

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Not to push overdoing it, but an inspection today of a nearby wholesaler found more of the odd Colombian/Venezuelan Microglanis (still being sold as poecilus) with the pale holes in the subdorsal saddle. 11 in all. They're covered in ich, but I've had good luck treating past Microglanis with NoxIch, so I took the chance and got them.

One fish in particular has a nice pattern (if you ignore the ich).

Sorry for the cruddy photos. These are frame grabs from a video.

Cheers, Eric