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One of my corys I found yesterday looked like it had been attacked, a gash in the head with several scales missing.

Im not sure if this is disease or if something is attacking it, I have a community tank, could my syno mulipunctatus be doing it in the night while scanning ground for food?

Kotty

The syno and the corys have different water requirements and it's not a good idea to put them in the same tank in the first place.

Hi,
Yes it is possible.Most synos are not compatible with small,peaceful catfishes such as corydoras because they have a reputation to agression.But your syno is totaly uncompatible with corydoras because while your cory needs a ph around neutral to slightly acidic,your syno needs a ph very alkaline 8-9.Also they are not compatible because of the big difference between their adult size.Your syno will grow to 25-30cm while your cory will stay under 10 cm except if you have C. barbatus which grow to 11cm.

I took him out last night and put him in my breeding tank on his own. Hes going back to the fish shop this weekend for a better home. Thanks for the advice.

Kostas wrote:Hi,
Yes it is possible.Most synos are not compatible with small,peaceful catfishes such as corydoras because they have a reputation to agression.But your syno is totaly uncompatible with corydoras because while your cory needs a ph around neutral to slightly acidic,your syno needs a ph very alkaline 8-9.Also they are not compatible because of the big difference between their adult size.Your syno will grow to 25-30cm while your cory will stay under 10 cm except if you have C. barbatus which grow to 11cm.

With due respect to Kostas, I'd like to correct some misconceptions in his post.

1) Most Synos are perfectly compatible with small peaceful fish. To the extent that aggression is occasionally a problem, it's usually territorial, directed at larger fish, and can be solved by getting a bigger tank.

2) S. multipunctatus maxes out at about 10 cm.

The point about the different water chemistry required by Corydoras vs. S. multipunctatus is correct of course.

DInyar

Dinyar?

ehh

S. multipunctatus maxes out at about 10 cm.

I think you made a wee mistake; it's of course PETRICOLA that maxes out on 10 cm; multipunctatus -Chuckoo cats- reach 15-25 cm depending on subspecies/variety.


Kostas; to name a few Syno's that are OK with Cory's:
S nigriventris
S contractus
S flavitaeniatus
S pleurops
S notatus
S alberti
S robbianus
S afrofisheri
etc

SG_Eurystomus wrote:I think you made a wee mistake; it's of course PETRICOLA that maxes out on 10 cm; multipunctatus -Chuckoo cats- reach 15-25 cm depending on subspecies/variety.

I should have said "average 10 cm SL". Some large specimens of S. multipunctatus I've seen may be a bit larger than that, but certainly well below 15 cm. Erwin Schraml reported seeing some preserved specimens ~20 cm. (His article on Tang Synos may have appeared in DATZ by now.) I certainly have never seen live specimens anywhere near that size.

I don't see a significant size difference between S. multipunctatus and larger "varieties" of the S. petricola complex. If anything, large petris are bigger than large multis.

As for compatibility with Corydoras, every riverine Syno species I've ever kept -- and I've kept many species -- would be compatible with Corydoras. They may kill other Synodontis, which they see as competition, but wouldn't bother to kill mere Corys.

Dinyar

Strange...
I've seen loads of them in the 7-8" range and the biggest one I ever saw was about 22-24 cm or so (a female). According to Rene Kruter (who has been at -or better in- the lake dozens of times) they can reach 30 cm, but I think that might be a bit over the top; fish often lookm bigger when diving.

I do however have heard that something in the diet might be missing so multipunctatus doesn't reach it's max length in captivity. Since for obvious reasons exporters ship the smaller ones (more fish in a box), this makes sense; we buy halfgrown or juvenile specimen (or breed them) and they don't reach the size they have in the lake.

But right now at verduijns' place there are many multipunctatus within the 7" range available.

It might also be true that most importers in your area get the syno's from a different source, so you got the smaller variety.

Yesterday I saw ~50 preserved wild-caught specimens of S. multipunctatus at the AMNH. The largest was ~15 cm SL (not counting tail). Most were <10 cm.

(I also saw a S. pleurops that was maybe ~20 cm and about 7-8 cm high! That really surprised me.)

Dinyar