PlanetCatfish.com

Before i forget too many (& for the delectation of those not able to make it)... Jools, Mats, TP, Shane please add in anything significant i've missed...all ID's as per store label...

BAS



true
although they looked like another sp. & not the pics in cat-e-log


Pier


Otorongo woodcat



large (superb)

Absolutely fantastic 3"

Coldwater whiptails

More L numbers than anyone could want.....

Aqualife




Small microsynodontis, polli (?)

Man, I'm jealous, that is an amazing selection. B. melapterus is on my want list! And a lot of species I've never seen before!

Suckermouth wrote:Man, I'm jealous, that is an amazing selection. B. melapterus is on my want list! And a lot of species I've never seen before!

Just to be clear, two of the three shops we went to, Pier and BAS, are unusually large and specialize in unusual/expensive fish. Pier had fishes that were several hundred pounds in price, other fish that even Shane and Jools have only seen once or twice (or never before). I know of no shop that has a large selection of plecos, and that have SEVERAL of each species - we sorted through five different L128 to get a female for me, and went through another few to find a male L. triactis.

Aqualife is a traditional small independent shop, but they carry unusual fish very often - some locally bred too.

--
Mats

MatsP wrote:Just to be clear, two of the three shops we went to, Pier and BAS, are unusually large and specialize in unusual/expensive fish.

This just makes me more jealous! It still stands that these fish are more easily available as they do the job of finding the rare fish for you. The only aquarium fish superstore that might even approach this kind of selection I know of is That Fish Place in Pennsylvania.

I'm pretty sure there are a few stores that have really good selection in the US - the problem is of course that the US has about 4-5x the population of the UK (61M), but it's spread over a much larger area - the UK is about 245000 KM^2. That would make it the 11th largest state, between Oregon and Idaho, with a population matching California and Texas (two largest) combined. So there is more scope for having specialist shops that bring in unusual stuff.

On the other hand, in the US there are more companies that actually do ship fish.

--
Mats

And for anyone interested in L-numbers, I saw these at Pier

(tank bred)


[Massive - at least 25cm SL estimated]





(or similar - not quite sure - not labeled as)
(Hemiancistrus)



(pricey: £60!)


I'm sure I missed a whole lot in that list.


--
Mats

Cats aside, did anyone see those Borneo python eels Neil had?

racoll wrote:Cats aside, did anyone see those Borneo python eels Neil had?

Didn't see those, I'm afraid.

There were lots of nice fish in there... Always worth a visit.

--
Mats

I am jealous in a different way: it'd be way beyond cool, or hot - pick your adjective - to hang out in person with the "Experts" and see them in action!!!!! Maybe we (the USA-ans) should sponsor their tour across our land, you know, like the Beatles and then we could play the grouppies!!!

Viktor Jarikov wrote:I am jealous in a different way: it'd be way beyond cool, or hot - pick your adjective - to hang out in person with the "Experts" and see them in action!!!!! Maybe we (the USA-ans) should sponsor their tour across our land, you know, like the Beatles and then we could play the grouppies!!!

Absolutely - discussing Sturisoma ID's in person with Shane is different from posting photos and discussing from that.

--
Mats

Thats such a good L list from one shop, that place still amazes me, i have to come up with you guys one day!
I really want some of them L128, what size and price were they at?

Andy

andy75 wrote:I really want some of them L128, what size and price were they at? Andy

Mats, were they £32 each for 6-7"???

Richard B wrote:

andy75 wrote:I really want some of them L128, what size and price were they at? Andy

Mats, were they £32 each for 6-7"???

Yes - the largest male was probably 7" long - I wanted a female, and it wasn't quite as large as that. They also had smaller ones at £34 - not sure why they were more (probably came in more expensive in the first place, I suspect).

Shane said that was a lot of money for a $4 fish, but he must have remembered an older price. The export list that Shane gave me lists "M" size as $14 each, so I guess the pressure of not being able to get Brazil fish increases the price on Colombia/Venezuela/Peru fish, along with general inflation... Or maybe they are harder to get...

--
Mats

Wow. That is a cool Syno, and have never seen Amaralia hypsiura before.

We have a few good stores in the pacfic northwest (seattle / portland) but I have yet to find a store that is really in to unusual and uncommon cats.

Richard (or anyone else, Neil for instance ), what happened to the small Ageneiosus species? Were they all sold?

Ageniosus sp blue?
http://thepieraquatics.blogspot.com/
I cant remove the photo from home .
If it is there are 10 or so left.

Yes, the ageniosus were still there - just too much great stuff to remember

Richard B wrote:Yes, the ageniosus were still there

And NONE of you bought any?

Marc van Arc wrote:

Richard B wrote:Yes, the ageniosus were still there

And NONE of you bought any?

I went through the list - the two fish I really wanted from it were Trachelyopterus sp. Ottarongo and the Ageniosus, but the former were all gone (and way out of my league price-wise anyway), and the Ageniosus would need a much larger tank than mine, which was why I had to be realistic with the C.reticulatus.

Martin S wrote:

Marc van Arc wrote:

Richard B wrote:Yes, the ageniosus were still there

And NONE of you bought any?

I went through the list - the two fish I really wanted from it were Trachelyopterus sp. Ottarongo and the Ageniosus, but the former were all gone (and way out of my league price-wise anyway), and the Ageniosus would need a much larger tank than mine, which was why I had to be realistic with the C.reticulatus.

There was an Otorongo left...just the one.

The Ageniosus wouldn't fit in any of my tanks...

Were they that big then? I got the impression from the picture that it was/is a small species - wrt size more like atronasus and species 3.

Richard B wrote:There was an Otorongo left...just the one.

Oh OK...still out of my league price-wise
Out of interest Richard, how big was it? The image on the Pier site looks like quite a big fish - and I assumed from the name it would be , but it doesn't look like the pics here on PC, so maybe it was a different fish.
Thanks
Martin

@ Marc - about 4" TL. Just not got space or water conditions for them at present, but your assumptions are correct (at least at present, how big they reach though....?)

@ Martin - 3" TL a little tiddler - maybe the ones already sold were bigger or differently marked - there does seem some consoderable colour/pattern variation (check the pics on Aquabid)

Richard B wrote:@ Marc - about 4" TL. Just not got space or water conditions for them at present, but your assumptions are correct (at least at present, how big they reach though....?)

They remind me very much of , one of several Ageneiosus species known to stay small. It would surprise me if they would get any bigger as 15 cms/6".

Marc van Arc wrote:They remind me very much of

Ageneiosus cf_atronasus

, one of several Ageneiosus species known to stay small. It would surprise me if they would get any bigger as 15 cms/6".

They did look well developed AFAIK & in good health (except a couple that exhibited a little redness around the anal fin region)

Could they already be sexed?

Marc van Arc wrote:Could they already be sexed?

As far as i remember there were only just signs of sexual differences developing but i must say i didn't pay too much attention

Many very neat fishes seen for sure. The various bagrids had me very excited since I have not seen one in so many years, let alone so many great ones.
Mats,
Colombian prices have gone up since I left 8 years ago. Not sure if that is a reflection of scarcity though or popularity in the hobby. I tend to lean more to the later since the prices for other Colombian fishes have not changed as substantially.

We have a few good stores in the pacfic northwest (seattle / portland) but I have yet to find a store that is really in to unusual and uncommon cats.

Have you been to Clark's yet in Bellingham? That was my old haunt in my undergrad days. Jools, Whitepine and I even made a pilgrimage there last year (with a stop at Boundry Bay Brewery for a pint!) and it was still a great store. If you are willing to make a day trip you can swing up to BC and hit several of the stores up there like Big Al's. Not sure what the current US-Canadian dollar exchange rate is, but if it is on your side it makes the trip well worth it. If I am in the Seattle area we also hit The Fish Place and one, whose name escapes me, in Renton I believe.
-Shane

Shane wrote: ...

We have a few good stores in the pacfic northwest (seattle / portland) but I have yet to find a store that is really in to unusual and uncommon cats.

Have you been to Clark's yet in Bellingham? That was my old haunt in my undergrad days. Jools, Whitepine and I even made a pilgrimage there last year (with a stop at Boundry Bay Brewery for a pint!) and it was still a great store. If you are willing to make a day trip you can swing up to BC and hit several of the stores up there like Big Al's. Not sure what the current US-Canadian dollar exchange rate is, but if it is on your side it makes the trip well worth it. If I am in the Seattle area we also hit The Fish Place and one, whose name escapes me, in Renton I believe.
-Shane

Yes, Clark's is great. Not only is their selection good but they take great care of their fish, and they tend to lean on customers a bit to do the same before they let them leave the store with anything living (a practice I highly commend!) We went up there to pick up some micro cats (hara jerdoni and akysis vespa) and ended up learning a lot about how to get more out of our live planted tank.

'The Fish Store' in seattle has a great selection of plecos and synos, and some interesting big cats. Their list prices can be steep so make sure to use the sale coupons or wait for a sale on that pricey pleco before you buy.

Place for pets / place for fish has some nice fish and also appears very well kept but not quite the selection of the other two.

There is another store in renton I've been meaning to get to (I cant remember the name either!) and I intend to check out Conway tropical fish. I'll post a writeup on them when I have.

What, in your opinion, are the best stores for catfish in the US?

What, in your opinion, are the best stores for catfish in the US?

I am probably not a good person to ask as I have not lived in the US for over 10 years. If I were to go back though and could only visit one store for one day it would be That Fish Place in Lancaster, Penn. It must be the largest in the US. About the size of a Wal-Mart. It can take several hours just to make it through the aisles of tanks and they give you a clipboard with a form to write tank numbers down because you'll never find the tank again without its "address."
-Shane