PlanetCatfish.com

ok im not certain that i have petricola and not the dwarf version i was reading about earlier but all my fish came from a guy that only breeds wild caught africans and has a great reputation in the chicago cichlid scene so im gonna trust that they are.

anyhow i came home 12 hours after a 60% H2O change and noticed that a few of the larger cats looked as tho the had swallowed marbles.(i have a group of 12-15 in a 75 tank with alot of juvie mbuna just cuz i didnt know what to do with them at first and they seem to love the tank and all the food that hits the floor). so i set up a glass bowl with a ceramic pot on it and this am i think i saw eggs in the bowl. i came home tonight and i think maybe one hatched and possibly more but i cant tell bcuz i havent moved the bowl.

so what do i do? i cant make an egg tumbler to save my life. with mbuna eggs i never could get them to hatch in a breeder net cuz they take to long to hatch. any suggestions? can i put them in a bare bottom tank with a small sponge filter and hope eggs hatch? can i put hatched fish in a bare bottom tank with a sponge?

thanks for the info and ill keep ya posted. i think i might develope a new favorite species outta this one

ok i guess i need to know if there is a difference in how i should care for these things if they aren't petricola which seems to be the consensues on this site that noone owns true petricola. i just need some basic info and ill post pics of the adults later and get a true I.d

There are TRUE S. petricola about, but they are not common at all. And until a few years ago (December 2006, I think) the "dwarf" variety was not scientificaly described, and many retailers would just sell the fish as Synodontis petricola. So if the seller hasn't been studying the latest scientific news, he/she may well THINK that the fish are indeed S. petricola.

There realy should be no difference in the care.

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Mats

ok can someone recommend a place where i can find some info on synodontis catfish? i found a catfish website and figured a bunch of people whose hobby is catfish would be willing to help a cichlid guy out with a few husbandry questions. But they must have been put off by my insistance that i may actually have petricola and not another often confused species. so if someone could direct me to an article or another website ill never bother anyone with a silly new guy question again. thanks

I merged the two threads, as I can't really answer your question, but it doesn't really make sense to start another thread WITHOUT the questions you want answered - that probably won't get your questions answered...

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Mats

i have eggs that are fertilized and now i think swimming in a bowl of marbles in a 75 gallon tank with lots of hungry mbuna juvies. what's my next move? i have a fry net or a 10 gallon bare bottom tank? a goldfish bowl with an airstone? what do i feed them? baby brine shrimp? crushed flakes? how soon after the egg sac is absorbed do i start feeding? any special water parameters needed? im assuming im almost out of time but apparently i had to write a smart ass post to get a response other than "you dont have petricola". and this one was what questions do you have? most forums help out the newbies so they dont get turned off bcuz of "fish snobs"

Easy turbo! people on this forum are from all around the globe, in all different time zones! and it's days before Xmas. Patience grasshopper!

If you think the Mbuna juvies are going to eat the eggs, which I am thinking they will move them to the ten gal. But I thought the whole point of the marbles is it keeps them safe from predators?

Have you searched this forum for petricola/lucipinnis info? I can help you with some, I have lucipinnis but have never attempted to find fry eggs. I know there are articles here tho stand by i'll find them,

also have you searched the forum?

last post on this one:

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... f=8&t=8443

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =8&t=31035

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =8&t=21522



heres an article on apawning:

http://www.planetcatfish.com/shanesworl ... cle_id=264


There are tons more if you search this site for spawning petricola which is what i did but there s like 15 pages of it so i didnt post them all.

as far as feeding I'd imagine food small enough for them to eat? Daphnia? Crushed flake? Crushed whatever you feed the adults? NLS Grow? That's what I ve fed baby BN's.

Some syno masters will come on soon and help you. I ve only been keeping synos since 07 and I 've never dealt with fry of that species yet.

Good luck!

thanks alot. i did search the forum but for whatever reason i couldnt narrow the search and it was all over the place so i figured id just make a post. i appreciate the info and your time. ill let ya know how this turns out

Easy turbo! people on this forum are from all around the globe, in all different time zones! and it's days before Xmas. Patience grasshopper!

hehe

Some syno masters will come on soon and help you.

andywoolloo's imformation is all good...read through the posts given and should find all kinds of info, but come on back with any pertinent questions

Birger

my lucipinnis like spirulina flake and NLS community granules, or NLS cichlid granules, and defrosted Hikari just about everything.

Good luck!

well i managed to screw up the first batch off eggs that i had but i think i learned what i did wrong. the marbles are to keep the fish from getting the eggs and you have to change the marbles out once a day to keep stuff out of them. so im goin to give it one more shot in the 75 before i take some of the cats out and put them into a 20 tall.

what are the guidelines to keeping synodontis as far as tank space. theyre bottom dwellers so a 20 high doesnt make much of a difference but i dont want them to be crowded. im goin to put some small mbuna fry in with them so bioload wont be a factor as far as tank mates go. im goin to put (try to get) 3 pairs of adults in the tank. Is this way to much? as far as i can tell theyre not territorial.

Have you seen the breeding trap example shown at Catfish of the Month > June 2001

eltrut420 wrote:what are the guidelines to keeping synodontis as far as tank space. theyre bottom dwellers so a 20 high doesnt make much of a difference but i dont want them to be crowded. im goin to put some small mbuna fry in with them so bioload wont be a factor as far as tank mates go. im goin to put (try to get) 3 pairs of adults in the tank. Is this way to much? as far as i can tell theyre not territorial.

Not sure if pairs or a harem is best. I've had mine for 5 years in various tanks including a 36" tank, a 48" tank and a 72" tank. All fine.

Don't forget synodontis are fry eaters, so make sure the mbuna fry are not TOO small, LOL.

well is it bad for them to eat fry? i mean as far as too much protein? cuz i have quite a few hybrid(or soon to be spit out) mbuna that i always have trouble culling bcuz i dont like to flush them and dont have the space for somethin that would eat fry. so would it be bad for the cats to eat these once in a while? also would they come to the surface and try to get the fry out of a mesh fry basket( the ones that have a net stretched over a plastic frame)? thanks for the info b4 i had to learn that the hard way

I wouldn't think that the a few fry as part of a balanced diet would be bad for the Synos.

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Mats

Here is the kicker...I used to purposely let mbuna mothers spit out their fry in with some breeding size S.lucipinnis without a worry of them being eaten, and would do it again, not saying it is a good practice but they were never eaten. Can not say for Synodontis petricola though.

Birger