PlanetCatfish.com

I saw one of these today for the first time and straight away thought "now theres a Doradid i like". I was thinking about buying it as something a bit different for the 900 gallon tank i'm having built at the end of the month but having just read the cat e log profile im a bit worried about its feeding habbits of eating fruits and plant matter, are these essential parts of its diet or will it be just as happy on the meatier fare i give to the rest of the fish. I'm not keen on feeding fruits as many of them can leak juices into the water which play havock with the water chemistry and i'd rather not have fish that eat plants as it means having to buy and store even more different types of food than i already am.

It is likely that it will eat other things, but a mainly vegetarian diet would probably be the best choice. Now "fruit" doesn't have to be soft juicy fruits - I've fed my ancistrus with apple and melon chunks with good result, and no ill effects on the water (using reasonable portions of course).

Also vegetables like courgette, beans and cabbage may be good choices - again, these are tried and tested suitables for large plecos and has little effect on water quality as long as the amount is used in the right proportion to what the fish consumes in a reasonable time (don't feed it three days worth of food at once, obviously).

--
Mats

Well i'm suprised at the low number of replies, i would have thought there were a few people on here keeping this fish.

Thankyou for your reply Mats, i dont think the usual pleco fare will work as the Lithodoras has a tiny mouth totally unsuitable for rasping at semi solid foods. I have spoken with someone who keeps the fish and claims they only feed theirs on catfish pellets so i guess that gives me a basic diet and i can suplement it further with a few small berry like fruits occasionally and the standard benethic invertabrates like bloodworms etc.

Even juicy fruits dont present any problem to the water chemistry and somehow attract all fishes of the tank...Even fishes you wouldnt think of...I have fed many thought to be unsuitable foods like banana,melon,papaya,mango,fig,beetroot and coconut and have faced no problem with these regarding water chemistry and water clarity...From these i regularly feed melon,papaya and mango and much less frequently beetroot and coconut simply because the others are not readily eaten by my plecos till now...
So feeding this catfish wont place any problems to you
and especially in a 900g tank,even a whole mango wont make any difference...Imagine that i feed a third of a mango in a 55g tank...And have no water color/clarity problems...

Well i dont know about being fruit eaters but these guys certainly have a liking for prawns (shrimp) I picked the fish up today and on introducing it to the tank dropped a handfull of prawns in to stop the stingrays harrasing the new fish too much, too my suprise the Lithodoras went crazy swimming around the tank hoovering up as many prawns as it could fit into its mouth, not the behaviour you would expect from a fish just 2 minutes out of the bag!

It's a great fish, got me one to since a day or 5.

I haven't seen it eat unfortunatly.
Tried lots of things including live shrimps mussels market shrimp melon courgette and apple.

Keep me informed of his feeding habbits pls

And euhm, photo would be great

Hi i have a piece with me,and it eat sinking pellets. growing well in my 6ft tank.

Well its still eating the small frozen prawns and eats JMC catfish pellets (what catfish doesnt?) but has shown absolutley no interest in any vegetable fare offered so far, i tried a leaf of Romaine lettuce, a bit of chopped frozen spinach and a slice of courgette and it didnt as much as even look in that direction.

It has so far eluded attempts to take photographs, in typical Doradid fashion it spends the days with its head wedged in a plastic pipe and only its tail to be seen.

can you post a picture??

cause recently a guy on a Dutch cicxhlidforum also claimed to have lithodoras and he finally managed to post pix.

they are Pterodoras granulosus; a species I've kept myself for years. great fish, but it shows that the REAL lithodoras is very very rare in the hobby.

Pterodoras originates in the same biotope as Agamyxis and Platydoras and small juveniles can hitch along as by-catch contaminants; that's how I got my first one.

I'm pretty sure it is a Lithodorus, i bought it from a reputable shop which specialises in rare imports (wildwoods) and paid a fair bit for it, it also looks identical to the pictures in the cat e log but i must admit you have me a little worried now so here are some pictures.

Excuse the quality, i had to evict the fish from its tube which it wasnt happy about and i havent cleaned the glass in that corner.



[img:367:260]http://www.fishforums.net/uploads/month ... 929125.jpg[/img]

[img:276:353]http://www.fishforums.net/uploads/month ... 929170.jpg[/img]

[img:391:283]http://www.fishforums.net/uploads/month ... 929218.jpg[/img]

[img:442:287]http://www.fishforums.net/uploads/month ... 929250.jpg[/img]

So whats the verdict then?

yup, that's the real thing. the dorsal spine and the eyesize are very different from Pterodoras; among other things.

Well thankgoodness for that, i had that horrible sinking feeling that just maybe i might have got my ID wrong and paid a lot of money for a much cheaper fish.

from what I can see, just by looking at your pix:
Lithodoras spp
-big eyes
-serrated dorsal spine on the front
-smooth skin
-scutes between dorsal fin and adipose
-scutes between adipose and caudal fin
-a low number of scutes on the lateral with large thorns
-thin, relatively short mandibular whiskers
-smaller, more ventral placed mouth

Pterodoras
-very small eyes, even when juvenile (I've kept one from 2" and grew it past 1'4", even when small it had tiny eyes; almost like a Banjo-cat)
-smooth grooved dorsal spine on the front
-granulated, leathery skin (the fish really feels like rough rubber)
-no scutes anywhere, save the row on the lateral line that all Dorads have
-more numerous scutes on the lateral, with smaller thorns compared to Lithodoras
-large, stiff mandibular whiskers (wich makes sense together with the smaller eyes)
-a very wide, terminal mouth

Well i was pretty certain that it was Lithodorus but when you said that someone else thought they had one and it was actually Pterodorus it got me thinking as i have seen a few posts about them popping up on the aquatic forums recently, it must just be Lithodorus season lol.

Whut guy sid ?

Great fish it is for sure !