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Anyone in UK seen these for sale at all lately? I know they are plankton/Filter feeders (Shrimp/Daphnia etc). Anyone had experience keeping them at all?
I was at London Zoo Aquaria 15 years ago and I saw one of these and never, ever forgot it!! He was a beautiful fish and he was bigger than the 25-30 cm size that Aqualog state as max size, more like 40 cm! Any comments?

Tim

Tim,

I recently got some pictures of young ones from a UK dealer, sorry but I can't remember who! They do visit this site, so why not post a "Wanted" post in that forum?

Jools

Helllo

I had the chance to obtain this species from a french wholesaler who recieved them as a i sample (!!) from a russian exporter from Moscow. This was 5 -6 years ago. Perhas thee still are some breeders of this species in this country.

Regards

Hi Tim. I recently sent a picture to Jools, to place in cat e log, of a Hemi, so I think he is reffering to myself. The fish we have in our shop is approx 4inches and we have had in around six months. I like to acquire a lot of exotic cats, rays etc and keep them back for a length of time to learn more about them. Although you can purchase all the fish we sell, some are pets and are kept in seperate tanks from our main stock. The Hemi we have is priced around £30 and was the only one available when purchased, but I beleive they do prefer to shoal. They appear very sim to Brachysyno Batensoda and reach same adult size in aquaria. I can remmember seing 1 at a zoo around 12inch. They spend most of there time inverted under rocks and venture out when fod is available, they are not fussy feeders and readily accept dry foods. Please contact if I can be of further help.

Nowadays the valid name is Synodontis membranaceus- at least what i know.

Mika wrote:Nowadays the valid name is Synodontis membranaceus- at least what i know.

I'm not aware of any formal reclasssification of Hemisynodontis membranaceus and Brachysynodontis batensoda as Synodontis membranaceus and Synodontis batensoda. My impression is that Fishbase has "reclassified" them on its own.

Dinyar

I guess until someone conducts a thorough phylogenetic analysis of the Mochokidae and show that <i>Brachysynodontis</i> and <i>Hemisynodontis</i> are just derived <i>Synodontis</i>, it might be better to leave things as they are for now.
The last authoritative work on <i>Synodontis</i> was Poll's revision, who recognized these three genera as distinct.

That's my view as well. I did some informal research on this maybe a year ago, in the course of which I consulted with several people, including Lee Finley. They all said exactly what Silurus says in his post immediately above: leave them where they are until and unless a systematic revision of the genus formally reclassifies them.

Dinyar

I managed to get 2 from Wharf in Pinxton (my lfs). They're 3" long and are extremely active fish. Very interesting to watch but a little quarrelsome with one another (but only at mealtimes). I'm really looking forward to growing them on in the years to come. I credit these fish for my fascination in the hobby because 16 years or so ago I saw one at London Zoo aquaria in the giant show tank there. It never left me and they've been dream fish ever since.

One of my coolest sightings in a movie was a school of membranaceus. In Octopussy (the James Bond movie), if you look carefully at one of Octopussy's two tanks, it houses a large group of these. Very weird.

I had one of these fella's a couple of years back, I bought it as a B. batensode but very soon realised that it was not when it past the 4" (100 mm) mark and carried on untill it reached neally 10" (250 mm) although a very niceelegant looking fish, I found it to be very quarrelsome so kept it on its own. Never did find any B. batenspda

Ian

You could try The Aquaic Habitat in Gloucester, not sure of the number, but I think that some have just been delivered.

Rusty; My fiance is a Bond nut, I'll dig it out and take a look!! Classic

Mika wrote:
Nowadays the valid name is Synodontis membranaceus- at least what i know.


I'm not aware of any formal reclasssification of Hemisynodontis membranaceus and Brachysynodontis batensoda as Synodontis membranaceus and Synodontis batensoda. My impression is that Fishbase has "reclassified" them on its own.

Dinyar

Aquarium atlas vol 6 says that according to Willoughby 1994 they belong to Synodontis.Whatever that means i don``t know.I couldn`t find any more precise reference.

Aquarium atlas vol 6 says that according to Willoughby 1994 they belong to Synodontis.Whatever that means i don``t know.I couldn`t find any more precise reference.

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