PlanetCatfish.com

Hello Im new here and would like some help please on identifying an Asian Catfish variety.

From what I've found its a Paroon Shark/Iridescent Shark Pangasius Catfish its the black/silver colour but it differs
to ones I've see in the LFS in the UK by having longer and more pointed Fins...I've only seen it once and it was while I was on holiday in Sri Lanka in a Fish Shop..They called it the "High-Fin" variety Catfish. Unfortunatly I didnt have a camera with me at the time.

Ive asked a Fish shop in the UK and he said its real name is Pangasius sanitwongsi but when searching for this variety I only find the normal smaller Finned Cats...Does anyone know what its real name is?

Also when searching the web I came across a post referring to a variety of this Cat as the "emperor" variety...could this be it?

Thankyou in advance.

Try that.

Hi Silurus,

Thank you for the link. Its definitely the one in the pic-top 3rd from Left. The other juvenileâ??s pics dont show the longer fins?...is it because they only develop in maturity? The fins in the P.hypophthalmus are significantly smaller then.

So it looks like the High Fin is the Pangasius sanitwongsei.
Is this variety more black than the P.hypophthalmus(seems more silvery)?

I do understand that most people would never keep this fish cos its erratic and grows large but I really am prepared to go for a large tank to keep them, could you suggest a minimum size tank for them? Also I've heard that if you keep them in a group they'll be "less" nervous? Are any of the varieties more docile?

Thank you

Pangasiids need a lot of swimming room. Not the type any aquarium of a reasonable size can provide. Not even your average garden pond can provide this. You'd need something like a small lake at least.

hi marty
have to agree with silurus here.
no tank is adequate for their needs, yrs ago as part of my job, i looked after some
of these; a few were smallish specimens (around 20 inches), they where kept in a tank measureing 7ft long, 2ft deep and 2and a half ft wide, they had similar sized tank mates, the trouble with them is that they are extremely skittish, if anything happened in the tank or outside it they dashed around erratically resulting in them banging up against the sides of the tank. they often showed signes of damage on their nose as a result and within a couple of hours their eyes would cloud over, sometimes no matter what treatment was given they would refuse any food and shortley after die,,i did not matter how many were kept together.
these are one of those fishes that really are better off in their natural habitat..
one word of caution, large public aquaria here in the UK very rarely take in unwanted fish that have outgrown their aquaria.

From my experiences, they are very prone to Ich and other diseases while small and not that hardy.