PlanetCatfish.com

Hi, I am from Europe (Italy) and I have a 18000 litres marine shark tank in which I keep a couple of Blacktip reef sharks, a female Altantic nurse shark and a couple of Brownbanded bamboo shark. The tank is in my house.
I work in an aquarium pet shop and I will import 4 baby albino Wells catfish (Silurus glanis) for me next week, I hope the y will be ok. At the moment I will keep them in an aquarium, but when they be adult they will live in my outdoor pond.
Does anyone keep this interesting species?

Best regards,
Stefano
www.stefanobarone.net

Does anyone keep this interesting species?

You probably will not find to many people that actually keep this fish, in a proper way at least...looks like you may have an idea how to handle a fish of this potential size. There are not many that have tanks of this size.

There are a few people in the UK who have them but not many. Bolton Aquarium had one many years ago & i think the sealife centre in Birmingham & perhaps Blue Planet had them too - hobbyists seldom keep them in the UK though

The import of 4 baby Albino Wels catfishes has arrived few days ago (see picture of one specimen). They are healty and active.
I will post new pictures and video soon.
regards
Stefano
www.stefanobarone.net

Richard B wrote:hobbyists seldom keep them in the UK though

Over here some garden centers as well as LFS had these last summer - and may still have some. Prices differed, but an Eindhoven garden center offered them for 6 euros (about 5.4 GBP). They were however sold under an incorrect, made up name (albino dwarf catfish......). I couldn't resist telling the manager what they really were and he didn't seem amused. I also wonder if his customers were or probably will be next spring. The "dwarfs" have apparently grown a bit.
What I do know is that these fish - once too big and/or too greedy - will make their way into our natural waters, causing disaster among our endemic fauna......
It's a shame they are sold anyway, but a disgrace they are sold to ignorant customers under a name that implies they could be kept in a fish tank or an average pond.

What I do know is that these fish - once too big and/or too greedy - will make their way into our natural waters, causing disaster among our endemic fauna.....

actually. no.
what they DO is restore the natural food chain...
this particular species IS an endemic!

the sole reason they are so rare in the Netherlands is because 4 million idiots armed with fishing rods have driven it to a near extinction here.
and the engineering and depleting and polluting of our inland waters; all the toxins and pesticides and digging and rerouting and poldering and agriculture has done the rest

today our freshwaters are too crowded because every single year the fishermen lobby releases 400.000.000 (yes, these zero's are true!) Cyprnids in our waters to add "prey" for the fishing horde.

the main reason behind this is that fishing damages fish and hence a lot of those cyprinid die. the other reason is that inedible fish like carp and minnow and all are released after catch and the edible pisacivores like large bass, pike and catfish are not

as a result we have a really sad situation:
-ther waters are overcrowded by digging cyprinids and hence turbid.
-the plancton is depleted, animals like daphnia etc are in too small numbers because of the mud; their natural food (unicellular algae) cannot thrive because of the lack of light. also; too many plancton feeders are dumped in the waters every year
-the top of the foodchain is largely absent and diseases like mould, bacterial infections, botulism and so on go rampant
-the absence of unicellular algae on 1 end and top predators on the other end causes too much nutrition and once summer hits, outbreak of botulism and blue green cyanobacteria are all that common.

the BEST thing we can do in fact is release loads of Silurus, pikes and other endemics, stop the dumping of 400 million muddiggers every year and shoot the rodcarring idiots.....