PlanetCatfish.com

We have been asked to rehome a large but as yet unidentified catfish. If anyone can help either with the accurate identification and/or the rehoming near Nantwich we would be very very grateful. We have a picture bit have not yet mastered how to upload it to this forum so contact me and I/ll email it to you
Names please to Gerald at the FishOrphans Group :
Gerald@calypso.org.uk
We are also trying to upload it to our website at URL

Hello,
This might help:

http://www.planetcatfish.com/faq/index. ... opular=yes

Hi,
Sorry can't help with an accurate id but looks to be a pangasius of some type.
Alison

Yes, Alison is correct. I too daren't say for sure which exact species it is, but have a look at and see for yourself.
It's not P. nasutus, so you'll have 10 other species left to check.
Or wait for HH, he'll know.

it does look like that a lot.

Pangasius hypopthalmus is the best of the two matches we were advised on so thank you all very much for your lep

looks like someone's going to need to fire up the ol' BBQ

I can tell from experience quite recently that these taste great when grilled whole

might seem barbaric, but at least the fish is not going to waste and it'll save it years and years from being kept in way too small tanks and being returned to LFS's again and again and again.

The only reason why i will not BBQ any of my fish, is that I'm allergic to eating it

Look at it this way: If you can provide a fish a good life, untill it reaches a foot of length, but ikt keeps growing, you better eat it, after killing it paiinlesly, than let it suffer

The last couple of posters on this topic have missed the point. We can and do rehome the vast majority of large and XL fishes we are asked to rehome.
Would you eat your pet dog or cat?

Gerald ( FishOrphans )

a pet dog or pet cat is easily housed and easily kept happy

a pet pangasius is not; you'd need a homemade river to keep it properly, as it reaches 3-4 feet and needs a fair current and speciesmembers as well.

a pet dog or pet cat can survive in a house when it's taken care of; a pet pangasius cannot.

I wouldn't eat a dog, not because it's a pet, but because dogs are unclean and spread diseases. for the same reason I would not eat rat, pigeon or cockroach.

but a pet horse that has had a good life, breaks a leg and has to be put down: sure, why not? perfectly well-tasting animal. why let it go to waste?

I see them too Sid

Matt

The specific Pangasius we have been asked to rehome does not grow to 3-4 feet and the rehoming systems available to us are up to 10,000 gallons (25k litres) so no space problems. It is not injured and does not need to be put down simply because its current owner and original purchaser was ignorant regarding its requirements.
There are laws on Animal husbandry and the associated duty of care for owners in the UK which have recently been revised and now include pet fish - so theoretically you could be prosecuted for killing any fish merely for convenience. It is partly due to this new law that the RSPCA do not take in unwanted fishes any more.

The specific Pangasius we have been asked to rehome does not grow to 3-4 feet

What makes you say this Calypso?

Calypso wrote: We can and do rehome the vast majority of large and XL fishes we are asked to rehome.

My compliments for doing such a good job.

Calypso wrote:
We can and do rehome the vast majority of large and XL fishes we are asked to rehome.


My compliments for doing such a good job.

Indeed. I am wondering how this is funded?

The FishOrphans scheme is financed partly by public donation but mainly by the nationwide members who all rehome unwanted fishes freely simply because they care about fishes. We only lost about £500 last year so all donations of help or finance are welcomed.

racoll wrote:

The specific Pangasius we have been asked to rehome does not grow to 3-4 feet

What makes you say this Calypso?

I too would like to know where this information comes from, as if this is correct, then we need to include this information in the Cat-eLog - I've recently checked the current numbers with Fishbase, and if you have some relibale documentation that contradicts Fishbase, then I suppose we'd have to fix it up.

For reference: Here's a list of Pangasiidae in size order. As you can see, there's only two species that don't grow to at least nearly 3 foot - and I suspect those two are at least partly wrong, since this picture of Pangasius macronema



shows a fish noticably longer than the ruler - which seems to be 300mm / 1 ft. Whether this is the world record size fish or not, I don't know.

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Mats