Baby Whales Catfish ( Cetopsis coecutiens )

[CatWhat]

I was planning on ordering a few Baby Whale catfish, but still having a hard time finding a source for them. Anyway, I was hoping if anyone could give me some personal experience on keeping these cats? I have done lots of research but I find the personal experience gives you a better insight to what it is truly like to keep them. Thanks for the info.


Matt

[Richard B]

Send Amiidae a PM - i'm sure he'll be able to offer a few points...

[Stackdeck]

For starters they need lots of space , and faster flowing water. Didn't have too much trouble getting mine onto frozen prawns & pellets either.

[CatWhat]

What would you suggest for a minimum tank size for a certain amount of cats?

[MatsP]

I'd say at a very minimum 4ft x 2ft x 2ft. Some more on each side would be better.

--
Mats

[CatWhat]

Thanks for the info. So having lots of current seems to key with these guys. I'm planning on either getting a couple of canister filters, or even just a couple impellers on one side of the tank to create a bit of a river current. It seems the only problem I might have is getting them. I have been looking around the country for suppliers that could get them in, so far I have found two that said they could. Being catfish, it seems I shouldn't have much trouble getting them to take prepared food. I'm not going to give any feeders, as I am already down that road trying to get my Snakehead to take anything BUT feeders. I plan on just having a few pieces of drift wood, rounded beach rocks, a couple of grass type plants and sand as the subrtrate. I want to give them lots of swimming space, and not try to diffuse the current too much.

[amiidae]

Thanks for your pm.

This is not a shy cat - At least not one that will hide most of the time. Good water flow and efficient filtration is important. I have no problem getting it feeding on Hikari sinking pellets.

Pretty hardy. Just avoid extreme water condition. oh ya, be prepared to keep them in a species tank. so far, I have not tried mixing with other fishes (after reading all the horrible warning on the net and books) but I do know some guys managed to mix them with large plecos and Megalodoras uranoscopus.

[Industrial]

We get these in at work sometimes. They almost never do well in the store. They are always active, but never go nuts for food like the cetopsis on youtube. They also seem to have really red fins when we get them. Perhaps if that is the case for you, treating them with an anti-parasitic medication such as Quinine sulfate (Crypto-pro) could help. We have done the same thing with fish with similar problems and it seemed to make the problem go away when untreated fish wasted and parished.

Also, I'd suggest giving them a pretty large tank right off of the back. A 3 1/2" specimen will make full use of a 40 breeder, and I wouldn't go any smaller than 30" in length for two.

[CatWhat]

My plan is to start them out in my 75g. Yeah, from what I read there won't be any tank mates for them. But that's fine as I don't want to take any tank space from them and have anything else increase the bioload. At the moment I have three Aqua Clear HOB filters that seem to have always done well filtering the tank. But as I mentioned I'm going to get a couple of impellers for the top corners to create a good flow from one side of the tank to another. Would adding Melaflex to the water be ok when I first get them, or should I see wait and see what kind of condition they are in?

[Rhab]

I've just started seeing these guys in stores. They all seem to have banged up noses. Not a surprise really, they move about like they are in a benny hill video and evidently see as well as mr magoo.

[nvcichlids]

these cats are really awesome, I wish I could afford a colony of them right now (just bought a house and am working on re-setting up the fishroom that used to be in my parents house in mine..)