PlanetCatfish.com

Hi Everyone,
I just brought this catfish at a aquatic and they said it was a Rainbow sucker however i cannot find any info on that name nor can i find a picture simular in the cat-elog..

Please help my id this cutie as i want to learn how to better care for it

thank you for taking the time in advance to look.

p.s the fins have white and pink stripes..the body has a couple white stripes



pps i know the other ones are corydoras

I suspect it's a Garra species, but I'm not very good at diagnosing Characin species. Not being a catfish, they are usually ID'd elsehwere. A tentative guess based on Google is Garra flavatra. It's closer to a goldfish than a pleco!

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Mats

Not a catish at all, but a Garra flavatra. I believe it is usually sold as "panda garra".

thank u so much for the quick responses...i shall inform the lfs of their false info

It does indeed appear to be Garra flavatra.

Ps Garra Spp are not Characins.

Floody wrote:It does indeed appear to be Garra flavatra.

Ps Garra Spp are not Characins.

Just shows how little I know about them. I only recognise them because they are not infrequently mistaken for catfish and posted here.

--
Mats

doraemon wrote:thank u so much for the quick responses...i shall inform the lfs of their false info

What they sold it as is not false info. It is a rainbow sucker, that is just one of their common names.

but I'm not very good at diagnosing Characin species.

<Pedant hat on>

I think the word you were looking for was cyprinid Mats. Characids (i.e. Characidae) are the South American tetras and piranhas (if you follow Catalog of Fishes). Characins are technically the Characinae subfamily of the Characidae, although the name characin is commonly used among aquarists for various Characiformes.

But anyway, yes, the fish in question is certainly Garra flavatra. I found them to be an attractive, hardy, peaceful, active fish, that is very good at eating algae. They can be also be kept in groups.

You will need to make sure the fish has enough vegetable food. It also prefers cooler water (low 20s) and good oxygen/circulation. Round river stones make ideal decorations.

This link gives some excellent and very detailed information on them:

http://www.seriouslyfish.com/profile.ph ... tra&id=963

Here are some photos of the ones I had:

thank u so much for the quick responses...i shall inform the lfs of their false info

There is no right or wrong when it comes to what common names should be. The LFS can call them what they like, and different people call different things by different names anyway.

Personally I think the LFS should have a legal responsibility to supply the correct scientific name* with each fish purchased, say on a small card. This way, when a living creature is taken home as a pet, the owner stands a much better chance of being able to care for it correctly if they know what it is.

How can someone look after something properly if they don't even know what it is? The internet is very powerful and a simple Google search yields a lot of information.

* within reason, and to the best of their knowledge, so this may mean in many cases just to genus level.

I'm interested and surprised to hear that they're peaceful and can be kept in groups... I've never kept flavatra, but my LFS told me they had to keep them singly, with just one per aquarium, or they'd relentlessly chase eachother. You don't see any aggression at all?

Mike_Noren wrote:I'm interested and surprised to hear that they're peaceful and can be kept in groups... I've never kept flavatra, but my LFS told me they had to keep them singly, with just one per aquarium, or they'd relentlessly chase eachother. You don't see any aggression at all?

I think the keyword is group: 3 is not a group, 6 maight be a group, but 10 will certainly be a group

The more fishes are around, the more any agression is spread out, BUT also the less agression many species show - generally speaking, that is

I'm interested and surprised to hear that they're peaceful and can be kept in groups... I've never kept flavatra, but my LFS told me they had to keep them singly, with just one per aquarium, or they'd relentlessly chase eachother. You don't see any aggression at all?

I had six of between about 5-8cm TL in a 36" tank.

They chased each other around occasionally, but nothing serious. They would often rest on a rock together.

I also had two in there at one stage, and this wasn't a problem either.

They didn't appear overly aggressive to me at all.