PlanetCatfish.com

How to tell the difference between the hybrid ones and the real ones.

Price. If it's cheap, it's a hybrid.

fins

ALL fins (except for the adipose) have to be jet black with a glowing white margin
even the tiny ventrals and the anal fin have to be colored that way

if some of the fins are not black and white, it's a fake

and don't fall for "they'll color up later", cause that's bollocks; even a tiny 1" granulosa already has those fins up colored.

Why not post a photo?

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Mats

see my avatar for a pic of a tiny one - even the UK bred ones are pricey depending where you go; i've seen them £95-£115 but they could be available a bit cheaper in some places. Beware a label that says granulosus sp as these seem to be hybrids all of the time

A pic paints a thousand words....

Trimar is advertising a few 'True. English Bred' at £125

Ive got to wait to find my camera and as soon as i do i will post a pic

RickE wrote:Trimar is advertising a few 'True. English Bred' at £125

They seem to have gone up £10 @ Trimar

As if someone was listening:
PFK article on S. granulosa

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Mats

Richard B wrote:

RickE wrote:Trimar is advertising a few 'True. English Bred' at £125

They seem to have gone up £10 @ Trimar

They were £125 when I phoned this morning (not to buy granny,for something else.......... but I can dream.)

Ian

Comparison pix ... Yeah I fell for the "the fins will turn white" line.

I have a few very bad pics but i think its not a hybrid

On the fish in the bag, it doesn't have white barbles which is also an indicator.

Jools

Jools wrote:On the fish in the bag, it doesn't have white barbles which is also an indicator.

Jools

I think it does i think that its just the light, will have to take some better pics once i get back home to see it

Its whiskers are more of a dark grey, so im guessing that its a hybrid

The color of the barbels is hard to tell in your latest pic. If anything, they don't look white to me. Your best bet would be to catch the fish, put it on a dark surface, and take some pics with the flash on. Alternatively, you could try to photograph it while it is hovering in front of the driftwood.

I have seen granny's with dark barbels....
the fins look OK to me and spots do occur in young granny's.

but the mouth is odd......

it's far too wide for a granny, it looks like someone tried a polli-granny mix up.

the granulosa has the "regular" mouthshape like many riverines and also the multipunctata and grandiops
from below the mouth should look like a horseshoe and from above a pointed head with a rounded tip, not square.

it's not a member of the "polli-petricola-lucipinnis-dhonti" clade which all have wide square mouth to a degree.
from below these all have wide mouths and from above a blunt nose.

So basically it is a hybrid?

I'm not sure, but I fear it is

can you snap a picture from the side that shows the whole fish

also, a headshot -enlarged/zoomed in- that shows the head from the side, including the body piece just behind the head.

all Syno's have a pointy bone plate on the side, lying on the skin, just behind the gill.
it's just above the pectoral fin and it's called the humeral process.

this bony plate can be used as a "finger print", cause it has a different unique shape for each species

hybrids never have the same humeral process as the true species of the "elders", so the best way to see if a fish is a hybrid is by using this key

check this Synodontis multipunctata, the humeral is visible behind the head, just above the pectoral fin:


the humeral of another species, S acanthomias:


if you can take a pic where your fish shows this spike, we can be sure.

The camera i have is rubbish i will try my best, if i can get it into a glass bowl will that help me on getting a better picture..

Also try to have it on something that is dark so it will show the white up a bit more, i will take some pics now and try my best to get the shots from different angles

In one of the pics i think i can see that spike that you was saying about, not to sure tho. The best i could do given the time, il try again tomorrow sometime.

not needed anymore...

bad news: this is a fake

this time they managed to get the fins properly, but the stubby body and the ocellated marks are all wrong
it's like a swimming head; the posterior end of the body is all scrunched up like a 'balloon fish' too

not a granulosa

Oh that sucks, Thanks for your help any way.

Do you have any idea of the two the would of bred to make this one?

taylor1410 wrote:Oh that sucks, Thanks for your help any way.

Do you have any idea of the two the would of bred to make this one?

The ocelated spots look like S. ocelifer. And certainly one parent is S. granulosa.

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Mats

taylor1410 wrote:Oh that sucks

Especially if you paid a S. granulosa price for it.

Scleropages wrote:

taylor1410 wrote:Oh that sucks

Especially if you paid a S. granulosa price for it.

I got 2 of them given to me, but only have one at the moment so going to wait and see if the other is the same.

I dont know what i would do if i paid a small fortune for it

if it's a free gift, well, at least you got a free catfish

and it sure looks healthy

all in all a good thing, because if someone started giving away genuine granulosa for free, I'd have to kill him on account of me feeling ripped of.
since I own 6 and over here they go for over 300€.....

that would have been well past 1800 euro's I could have kept in my wallet, since someone took it upon himself to devaluate the worth of granny's to absolute zero......

and since killing people is still frowned upon, i'd likely be in trouble, cops, judges, jails and whatnot; a whole bothersome affair

The only reason i got it was because of a family friend who didnt know what to do with it when he was selling his fish tank so i said i would take them, then i saw a picture the granulosa somewhere so i was thinking if mine is that one.

I wish it would be a legit one

Pretty fish even though it's not a pure granny. Definitely something crossed with a granny.