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I'm new to this forum, so if this has been covered in the past, I do apologize. I'm setting up a South American tank. I just got my 210 up and running. I have in there so far, Silver Dollars, an Oscar, Manguense and a Blue Jack Dempsey. I need a catfish that will get big enough to not be on the dinner menu but not something that will get more than 12 - 18 inches long or so. There don't seem to be many options at this point that I've found other than the Jaguar Catfish which my LPS says is the same thing as the Marble Achara catfish. Any suggestions?

I've no suggestions but the common namme jaguar cat usually refers to and marble achara cat, .

A big difference in sizes.

Maybe the jaguar you refer to is something different.

I found a fish at Petland that was marked Jaguar Catfish on the side of the tank. There was no other name. However, he told me that it was a Achara/Jaguar catfish = Leiarius marmoratus. I put that in google and found on at PetSolutions.

http://www.petsolutions.com/404.aspx?40 ... +Catfish_E_

Leiarius marmoratus is a synonym (old name) of

I would avoid the Jaguar (L.Oncinus) & the achara for different reasons - the first is peaceful without armour to the body & potentially there may be aggression in your tank with some of the c*****ds - the 2nd is a predator which gets large & may view his tankmates as a potential meal.

I would suggest looking at the doradid family as these are reclusive heavily armoured catfishes. Some of them get pretty big like o.Niger but you could always remove a fish that outgrows the system. You haven't speciifed what sort of aquascape you have but most catfish would appreciate a refuge of some kind.

Additionally depending on where in the world you are, availability of some species seems limited

A Leiarius would get much too big. My suggestion would be a small group of . It's quite commonly sold, usually as the Four Line catfish, although it goes by other common names.

Dave Rinaldo wrote:Leiarius marmoratus is a synonym (old name) of

Leiarius longibarbis

There's a rather large size discrepancy between the two sites (24" @ PS and 32" here) but either way, bigger than I want to go. I'll look into the Liosomadoras oncinus and see where that takes me.

Richard B wrote:I would avoid the Jaguar (L.Oncinus) & the achara for different reasons - the first is peaceful without armour to the body & potentially there may be aggression in your tank with some of the c*****ds - the 2nd is a predator which gets large & may view his tankmates as a potential meal.

The second will get to big, and I am going to avoid him now that I know that. I might still look into the 1st though, because he does get nearly 10 inches long and is a very colorful fish, plus, somewhat unique. If I get him early and let them all grow up together, I'm hoping they will all learn to live with each other. I've seen Oscars living in the same tank as small feeder goldfish and other misc. fish that I would have thought would become dinner at one point, but because the guy never fed them live food, he never really developed the desire to hunt and kill to feed. I'm hopeful I can do the same.

Richard B wrote:I would suggest looking at the doradid family as these are reclusive heavily armored catfishes. Some of them get pretty big like o.Niger but you could always remove a fish that outgrows the system. You haven't specified what sort of aquascape you have but most catfish would appreciate a refuge of some kind.

I'm really not interested in any Plecostomus'. They are just to dirty. My Oscar will be dirty enough as it is. My aquascape is still evolving. right now, there's noting but rocks in there, with driftwood on the way and still trying to figure out what kind of plants grow in the Amazon. I want my setup to be as natural as possible.

Richard B wrote:Additionally depending on where in the world you are, availability of some species seems limited

I'm from the Chicagoland area, so most options are open to me, as they are a pretty big market.

Whiplash4ever wrote: I'm really not interested in any Plecostomus'.

Doradids are not 'plecos'.

Dave Rinaldo wrote:

Whiplash4ever wrote: I'm really not interested in any Plecostomus'.

Doradids are not 'pl*cos'.

Really? They sure look like it to me. I'm no expert... that's why I'm here... but I did a google search and came up with a pick that looked a lot like a plecostomus. I just did another google search and found, they in fact look nothing like a pleco. I must have mistyped or something.

Anyone else? Thought I'd get more replies than this, with this being a site specifically set up for catfish lovers.

Not sure what sort of suggestions you were looking for. There are forums where lots of people say lots of things, but usually pretty meaningless stuff. This forum has many good members, but perhaps not so inclined to adding comments without some feedback from the original poster.

The question "what would you suggest as a tankmate for <fill>" is often quite difficult - there are about 2500 different species catfish (Exactly 1871 of which are in the Cat-eLog, most have at least one picture). Some of these are probably suitable tankmates with your fish, but Jack Dempsey and Managuense are not exactly the easiest fish to find suitable tankmates for - Jack Dempsey being fairly agressive, and the Managuense isn't that far behind in agression, combined with growing large, which isn't helping much. Oscars are perhaps a bit more mellow, but certainly not afraid of eating anything that fits in their mouth, and they can certainly reach beyond the 10" mark.

Your limitation of size, I took to mean at least 10" and less 18" max size - this leaves 243 different fish. Many of those are plecos, but some aren't.

If we limit it to Doradids, you have 7 to choose from:
List of medium sized Doradids.

Try the Cat-eLog search feature, and add the temperature range you keep your tank at (keep the range as small as possible on temp, or you get "nothing", because you eliminate fish that can't stand either end of the temp-range - it works the other way to the size range, where if you choose "bigger gap you get more" - it's not so obvious at first, but it's the way it's supposed to work - because if you REALLY want a fish that can cope with 10-25'C (roughly 50-75'F), there isn't many that do).

Here it is: http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/search.php


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Mats

a South American tank

Manguense and a Blue Jack Dempsey

Parachromis managuensis (Jaguar Cichlid) is from Nicaragua in CENTRAL America. Archocentrus octofasciatus (Jack Dempsey) is also from Central America.
The A. octofasciatus will be ok with an Oscar and Silver Dollars in a large Tank but the P. managuensis will probably not be safe with the other fish, they're pretty aggressive. Central American Cichlids tend to be much more aggressive then South American species due to the highly competitive ecosystems they live in. They're not really suitable (or correct ) for a South American biotope.
Shaun

Whip, when those fish reach adult size - your tank isn't big enough for them. If its not too late to change you could do the following:-
1. It could hold a pair of P. Managuense (hope one doesn't kill the other).
2. 4 to 6 small to medium Central Americans, like J Dempsey, Nicaraguense, convict, sajika, firemouth. Use rocks to make territory boundaries.
3. Oscar with silver dollars (eat plants!), hoplosternum, dianema, brochis, pims and hiding places for the cats.
4. S Jurupari cichlids (big and peaceful) maybe with angels, and almost any small to medium catfish you fancy. And you can make full use of this website.
Plants might survive the 4th option.....
C Americans prefer hard slightly alkaline water, S Americans generally like it softer and below ph7. Your driftwood will acidify the water.
Hope that helps.

On second thoughts, a large oscar might be too hard on those cats...

Whiplash4ever wrote:I'm really not interested in any Plecostomus'. They are just to dirty.

Although it's just a matter of taste, drifwood which can resist rotting in a tank is rare and quite expensive - Mopani is the only example, and this does cost $$, I'm glad the decaying kinds of wood are cleaned, I'd rather say, maintained, by plecos.

even if I did not like them, they are very, very usefull.

The onrotten parts of the wood are excreted by the plecos, but this is also usefull, because it binds phosphates, on its way to the filter.

Cichlids, such as oscars, are very messy eaters, and any help you can get to keep the tank clean, will be usefull.

Still, if you rather not have plecos, do be carefull selecting wood

I have jaguar catfish in two different tanks, the larger which is just a bit bigger than yours also houses two oscars, one striped raphael and a pleco (gibbiceps). I've never witnessed the oscars harassing the four jaguars in any way. Actually, sometimes when feeding, the jaguars come out of their hides and follow the aroma straight to the oscars mouth and gills. In many occasions the jaguars have actually tried to eat straight from the gills (again, oscars are messy eaters) of the oscars. The cichlids don't seem to mind. The worst they'll do is shake their heads.

But all fish are unique. My good luck with this combination of fish might not happen with other cichlids or even other oscars. My oscars are only interested in each other. During breeding time they keep the other side of the tank so I just left some empty space there and filled the rest of the tank with plants, driftwood and rock-caves. (And no, the oscars don't destroy the plants, they just move them around sometimes. With trial and error you can find places where the plants don't bother oscars. I've never kept an oscar withouth plants in it's tank)
And if I ever see any aggression, I have an another tank for the L. Oncinus and I wouldn't have tried this unless I had a backup.

Doradids would be a whole lot safer bet with big cichlids. And a medium sized pleco wouldn't hurt either. You're gonna get a whole lot of crap in your tank whatever you do so adding a pleco that would eat some of the algae and the leftover food could be a good idea.

Also pimelodus blochii could probably do pretty well with oscars, I'm not so sure about more aggressive cichlids. They're fast enough to keep out of harms way and their speed also allows them to compete for food on a level that no doradid or auchenipteridid can.

And before you add any nocturnal catfish to your tank, make sure you have more hiding spots for the fish.

What kind of filtration do you have? With these kind of fish you'd wan't as much filtration as possible. Some denitrification wouldn't hurt, a deni filter or Jaubert type of setup, although I have no experience with Jaubert on fresh water. Helps fighting the nitrate build-up.

Kattes wrote:I have jaguar catfish in two different tanks, the larger which is just a bit bigger than yours also houses two oscars, one striped raphael and a pl*co (gibbiceps). I've never witnessed the oscars harassing the four jaguars in any way. Actually, sometimes when feeding, the jaguars come out of their hides and follow the aroma straight to the oscars mouth and gills. In many occasions the jaguars have actually tried to eat straight from the gills (again, oscars are messy eaters) of the oscars. The c*****ds don't seem to mind. The worst they'll do is shake their heads.

But all fish are unique. My good luck with this combination of fish might not happen with other c*****ds or even other oscars. My oscars are only interested in each other. During breeding time they keep the other side of the tank so I just left some empty space there and filled the rest of the tank with plants, driftwood and rock-caves. (And no, the oscars don't destroy the plants, they just move them around sometimes. With trial and error you can find places where the plants don't bother oscars. I've never kept an oscar withouth plants in it's tank)
And if I ever see any aggression, I have an another tank for the L. Oncinus and I wouldn't have tried this unless I had a backup.

Doradids would be a whole lot safer bet with big c*****ds. And a medium sized pl*co wouldn't hurt either. You're gonna get a whole lot of crap in your tank whatever you do so adding a pl*co that would eat some of the algae and the leftover food could be a good idea.

Also pimelodus blochii could probably do pretty well with oscars, I'm not so sure about more aggressive c*****ds. They're fast enough to keep out of harms way and their speed also allows them to compete for food on a level that no doradid or auchenipteridid can.

And before you add any nocturnal catfish to your tank, make sure you have more hiding spots for the fish.

What kind of filtration do you have? With these kind of fish you'd wan't as much filtration as possible. Some denitrification wouldn't hurt, a deni filter or Jaubert type of setup, although I have no experience with Jaubert on fresh water. Helps fighting the nitrate build-up.

Okay, a lot of this is over my head. Using the scientific names of the fish leaves me in the dust looking for more answers - LOL. But, to answer some of these questions, this is what I have in my tank

Stock List

1 Albino Red Oscar (Hellboy)
1 Electric Blue Jack Dempsey (Beast)
1 Managuense (Wolverine)
5 Silver Dollars (The Fantastic Four, Thing, Human Torch, Invisible Woman and Mr. Fantastic)
1 Jaguar catfish Liosomadoras oncinus (Sabertooth)
1 Pimelodella Gracilis Catfish (Venum)
1 Three Beacon Plecostomus L091 (Nightcrawler)

Filtration

Emperor 400 HOB filter
Fluval FX5 Canister filter
All-Glass model #4 sump

What do you feed your Jag cats?

As indicated in the other thread, my jaguar is not too fussy - she/he really likes pieces of prawn, & tablets and shrimp sticks but will accept bloodworm, various types of sinking pellet etc etc

Richard B wrote:As indicated in the other thread, my jaguar is not too fussy - she/he really likes pieces of prawn, & tablets and shrimp sticks but will accept bloodworm, various types of sinking pellet etc etc

Okay, let me ask you this then. How do you know the cat is getting the food? How do I ensure they are getting to it before the other fish do? This is why I'm worried, because I never see him leave that hole in the fake driftwood. He's there when I go to sleep. He's there when I wake up. The lights are off most of the day. I get home from work about 3 and turn them on, then turn them off again anywhere between 9 and 10 when I go to bed. That should give his nocturnal butt time to swim, but I never catch him at it no matter how sneaky I try to be. I feel like I'm way over feeding just so that I have a reasonable idea that he's getting SOMETHING, if that makes any sense.

do u ever get to peek at their bellies? I peek at my synos bellies with a flashlight and make sure they are getting food.

I have the tank set up tho so i can see them even if they hide. Well usually, not always! LOL But their hidey holes and over hangs are available to at least look at them a bit.

Mine are very elusive and they eat fine. But I have a species only tank.

The tank my 6" jaguar is in is unlit except by natural daylight or room light in the evenings. it does come out every once in a while - i probably see it once a fortnight. i feed prima & flake & bloodworm for the other fish in the tank & may see the jag twitch beneath the bogwood when it senses food in the tank. every third or so day i'll drop in shrimp sticks or tablets & on occasion the jag will be straight out to grab the food.

If you never see yours move out of the hiding place it is worth checking that it looks well fed or skinny - if it looks ok, it probably is. I had a jag previously that i forgot i had & converted the tank into a high pH tanganyikan set-up. after many months it came out of hiding looking superb but heavily egg bound, this was the first of 2 occasions she released her eggs but with no male available they were unfertilised & eaten by her tank mates.

If your fish looks in good health there is nothing to really be concerned with but be careful of overfeeding despite best intentions - in the wild fish have not got the luxury of 'food on tap' & hungry fish tend to be healthy fish