PlanetCatfish.com

im just new here.. started this day because of my problem..

i have a 75gallon tank with 2month old ID sharks- iredescent? not sure about the spelling. and yesterday i bought 2 new paroon sharks.. just this morning i noticed that there are ahmm i dont really know the word but its a stage in the mosquito growth where they are like worms and moves alot in anticipated ways.. i was just shock to see those creatures because for the past 2months i never saw it there.. the water current is high.. due to my overhead filter.. which makes my fishes stay on the left side because the water flows on that direction..- yesterday my paroon sharks would also stay at the right side but now keeps on staying on the left.. so back to my problem its because of those "baby mosquitos" on my tank.. will it be ok for my tank to have them? i know Paroons are also carnivorous but just wanna make sure.. is it alright for my tank to have FEW of those things? thanks in advance

PS. i could use an instant help- please add me if you can help me through my yahoo messenger- <removed>
thanks!

S.A. Buan

[Mod edit: remove e-mail address --Mats].

Mosquito larvae should not harm your fish (in many cases they are fish food, but your pangasiids would ignore them, I think).

In any case, I don't see why you should encourage them (the larvae) to thrive, since they are a nuisance at best and more seriously, a disease vector.

Thanks for the instant reply oke thanks.. but how about the current?

some pictures are here please confirm as well


S.A. Buan

What makes you believe these fish are different species? Generally, the fish sold in the hobby is P. sanitwongsei - it is bred and farmed as a food-fish, and aquatic (fishkeeping) wholesalers are buying "fingerlings" from the breeders for the aquarium trade. It seems unlikely that different species are used for the food farming purpose, and thus unlikely that the fish you have is anything other than P. sanitwongsei.

Unfortunately, I haven't got HH's (silurus) experience in Asian fish, so he would be much better placed to discuss the finder detail in identifying the two species.

A _clear_ picture would also help (yes, I know, it's often hard to do that, but unfortunately, with a blurry picture, it's hard to make out details that may distinguish the two species).

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Mats

the other fish is most likely Pangasius hypopthalmus, wich used to be called Pangasius sutchi.

it's the most common pangasiid in the hobby.

you ARE aware of the fact that both species are unsuitable for our hobby?
as a young fish they're fine, but once they reach a certain size you'd need a huge pond or a private stream to keep it.

luckily in the Phillipines you don't need to use a heater, so a roomy pond should be OK for pangasius.
it's not for Pangasianodon however. it still gets too big, about the same size as a dolphin.....

yeah im aware of it's full size, and i have already planned about the pond.. i just dont get this line
"Generally, the fish sold in the hobby is P. sanitwongsei - it is bred and farmed as a food-fish, and aquatic (fishkeeping) wholesalers are buying "fingerlings" from the breeders for the aquarium trade"?- whats the big deal? O.o i dont get why he said that

S.A. Buan

ah, that one.

well, those fish are very useful as a foodfish.
and they're bred artificially using hormones on adult fish, then sqeezing the eggs and roe, mixing it and hatching the fry.

unfortunately a batch of fry is waaayyyy too large to raise as foodfish, numbvering several hundred thousand baby pangasiids.
so the surplus of this, what they cannot use for the food industry is sold to the pet trade.
this is easy money for the fishbreeders, since otherwise they would have to kill those fry.

now the useless surplus makes money.
the exporters and wholesalers can get the fry surplus for a very low price and sell it, export it, to the LFs where they can make a fat profit on otherwise useless worthless little fish.

so the tiny pangasius we buy in our stores is 'waste".
easy money for fishbreeders, exports and wholesalers; big problems for us in the long run.

so whats bad if our fishes are the not so good ones? theyre still fishes that can be our pet right?
so the main point is.. the pangasiids is a food.. and the good qualities are bought by the restaurant? then the not so good ones are sold to us in a fat profit?

S.A. Buan

The point of my message is that BECAUSE P. sanitwongsei is common species in the food trade, it is more likely than other species to enter the aquatic trade, for the economic reasons explained by sidguppy.

It's not about good/bad - they are not good to keep in aquariums, but if you have sufficient land, money and live in the right part of the world, they are fine to keep in ponds.

It's BAD when you can get them at £4.95 (or about US$ 7) in my LFS, since UK climate isn't suitable for outdoor ponds at around 25'C, so someone can't take that option - to solve the problem here, it requires a building to house the pond, and a good supply of electric power to keep the temperature up. Now, if you have that sort of capabilities, it's likely that you could possibly afford a bit more than £4.95 - it's certainly going to cost 100x the cost of the fish PER YEAR to keep it warm enough. Probably per month (for about 7 months of the year), actually.

Oh, and the profit probably goes to the owner of the fish-farm, not the breeder that gets the big fish and breeds them to sell the fingerlings (meaning 2-4" specimens - the size of a finger or so). So he's happy to take a few extra dollars for selling the surplus for the aquarium hobby.

If you'd had seen the number of relative beginners owning a "paroon shark" that come to planetcatfish, have a small tank and no suitable way to extend their fishkeeping to care for a massive , you'd realize that IT IS A problem. At least if we have the opinion that (where possible) good care and adequate space is important for the fish.

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Mats

I see.. got your point
just a question, have you eaten one? how does it taste? just asking caus i havent seen one on our wetmarkets
but they really look cool..

Pangasiids taste like most other catfish, except they tend to be a bit oilier.

OK if you like fish with a fair amount of fat, but not really my cup of tea.

I see.. wanna taste one

anyways.. this is my chance to learn more about my fish.. so how can i know if my pangasius is a male or a female?

S.A. Buan

Probably far too small to identify sex of them. The adult ones do (apparently) not show much externally either, but when in breeding condition, the females will be bigger/fuller bodied.

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Mats

i see.. just this morning ive noticed that my IDshark has a blood clog on his eye bellow the black part. I imediately called out LFs and the seller told me it would be just fine mybe its just because of careless swiming? is that true? would it me just fine?thanks

S.A. Buan

I have tasted Pangasius and although I'm a fish eater (i rarely eat meat, mostly cow or sheep if I do) I didn't like it very much

Clarias is a much better fish to eat IMO. several other catfdish are too.
but Pangasius has a very strong weird taste and it sort of "clashed" with my attempts at Asian cooking

maybe I just bodged the recipe

I see:p

Everlone wrote:i see.. just this morning ive noticed that my IDshark has a blood clog on his eye bellow the black part. I imediately called out LFs and the seller told me it would be just fine mybe its just because of careless swiming? is that true? would it me just fine?thanks

S.A. Buan

They are quite easily spooked and will dart about, so that's probably the cause of a bloody eye. As to whether it's "fine" or "not fine" is a more difficult question to answer. But it's also quite hard to do much about, so observation and treatment if it's getting worse is the only workable solution, I think.

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Mats

Despite growing to massive wild sizes, I have seen a number of ID and Paroon Sharks that have never reached anything close to the sizes of their wild conspecifics. As far as Aquarium fish go, they still get big, but stunting seems to affect them more than an Arowana.

Got this experience from my two 7-10 year old Pangasius Hypophthalmus who are about 18" and 12" respectively.

But keeping fish in conditions that do not allow them to attain their full potential is in my opinion not very nice either. That would be like (intentinally) keeping children in conditions that do not let them grow large - you wouldn't do that, would you?

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Mats

No, but regardless if its an Arowana, an ID Shark , or a Bichir, one thing common among these three (And all other somewhat big fish (BTW, monster is now being used for any fish that grows higher than 13 inches)) is that captive stunting will always occur. We can't exactly replicate the water conditions of the wild and we certainly can't give them a menu that's even close to what they get in the wild. Hence why captive stunting occurs. It's just that some species are more prone to such stunting than others and that some conditions make stunting less noticeable.

Sure, which is my keeping large fishes in captivity is not a good idea. It is a combination of several things:
1. Water quality.
It's VERY hard to replicate the pure water that most rivers have in a tropical rainforest [which is where most of our fishes come from]. Since it rains a lot and the ground is generally low in nutrients and there is lots of sunshine, plants will quickly absorb any nitrogenous waste that occur in the water. Particularly, large fish tends to release large amounts of ammonia in short amounts of time.
2. Feeding.
Large vegetarians will feed quite frequently. Large predators do not, but it's hard to keep them sufficiently fed still.
Variety in food can also be a challenge. In nature, fishes are often forced [and certainly have the freedom to] to eat a variety of foods. It is difficult to replicate this for a number of reasons: The natural food may not be easy to buy from a supermarket, we don't know that well what different fishes eat, and of course humans are often quite lazy and find it much easier to just grab a handful of ready made food rather than feeding a large variety of foods. But even a non-lazy approach is not easy.
3. Exercise/freedom to roam.
Obviously, a big body of water is different from even the largest of ponds. In a large body of water, the fish can swim over a much larger area than in a pond. It can find all manner of "interesting" areas to explore, eat from, etc.

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Mats