PlanetCatfish.com

Hi,

The image quality is really bad. But it would be great if someone here could identify this species.
Is it a Synodontis nigriventris?! It has black spots on its body, even the underside.
But the confusion is, the belly isn't darker as it's supposed to be for
Synodontis nigriventris! The barbels are 3 pairs; 2 being filamentous. The body is stocky rather than longish.

It's a hybrid syno.



[Mod edit: Use persistant link -- Mats]

Thanks! The reply came very prompt.
Could you plz tell me what size this will grow to and is there any special requirement for this species?!
There's another query. I think this is a common plec's albino variety. Am I right?

Yes, it's a common. Check the page for size and husbandry info:

Being strictly technical, it's not albino, since it's not got red eyes. Instead it's got a form of genetic colouring that is called "Amelanistic".

I agree with the ID.

--
Mats

I just made a visit to my LFS located in this remote corner of the State of Washington, USA. I was surprised to see they had a dozen of these hybrid Synos, attractive fish, but it does sadden me a little that hybrids are being produced rather than pure bred species.

Yeah, I know what you mean.... but I guess ignorance encourages this. I should have done a bit of research before getting one. But now that i have got it, I gotta take care of the li'l fellow!
What size does it get to? I have 2 common plecs, 1 ghost knife amongst the bottom feeders right now. Will they co exist in a 5' tank?!

I don't know what size they grow to, but I will make a guess: around 7-10 inches maximum size. That's based on the fact that it's a mix with S. eupterus on one side of the family tree, and that gets to around 10" long.

I would think this is by far the most suitable fish to live in your five ft tank.

Common plecs can grow to above 15", and ghost knife fishes also grow quite large.

But a 5ft tank is obvilusly much better than a smaller alternative for all of these fishes.

--
Mats

a 10" eupterus??

Mats, I want to see a pic of such a fish.

Synodontis eupterus gets bulky when mature; not in the least cause the finnage is overly large, especially the dorsal, tailfin and adipose.

wich makes the fish resemble one of those highbuild Asian carpthings.

but I've seen perhaps hundreds of these adult eupterus and they never pass the SL length of 7-8" or so, maybe 9" including the tail. and those are the biggest of the big ones.

I have a 7-ft long tank and have grown out a few hybrids. Mine have reached 6-7 inches. None are as robust as my large Eupterus, which is only about 6 inches long, but seems larger due to its girth and high dorsal fin.

Basically, as long as you feed them and give them places to hide, the hybrids behave much like any of my "real" synodontids. They don't seem to be overly aggressive.

sidguppy wrote:a 10" eupterus??

Mats, I want to see a pic of such a fish.

Ok, so I was doing my math a bit "sloppily" - the Cat-eLog lists 222mm as the max size, which indeed is shorter than 10" (8.7" is what the Cat-eLog display says, and I have no reason to doubt that - dividing by 25.4 shouldn't be too hard for the computer to do correctly!).

I made that update based on someones comments, however fishbase is much confusing: It states a 300mm SL size in the max size field, but later states a 222mm TL as the max size - I don't have the original publications, so I don't know what it refers to [I find posts stating the opposite - I don't know if I misread FB or they have swapped it around now]. A bit of searching finds that the old size was 150mm SL which made one forum user question the correctness of the ID.

I'll happily find a some "average value" between the two if you think 222mm is too much.

--
Mats