Can anyone tell me at what size will the male's pectoral fins change colour ? I bought 6 of these lovely cats to try and eventually breed them BUT they are all well over 2.5" long now and none of them are even starting to show orange rays on the front fins .......
Interests: breeding catfish from all parts of the world and getting them into the hobby. favorite catfish is the stonecat madtom,btw ingo how are my fish
It would probably be best to post a picture for proper identifaction first. once the species is identified it will be much easier to answer the questions you have asked.
At 2.5 inches they are not even half grown yet. I may be wrong, but in my experience it is M. thoracata that get the orange pectoral and then only when the male is in breedin condition. Also they grow a lot bigger than 5 inches as stated in the "cat-e-log"
Hopols are not hard to sex. If you do a comparison , looking at the underside, the female
has a much larger soft area between the plates, Plus the male has a( wingdingy) a very small
tube that you have to look very close to see.
My male got his orange fin edges (and his fins got proportionately longer) when he was about 3" long which happened in summer. Now it is winter and he's back to brown.
Jan
Thanks very much Alan.... I will hold off on the search for a male until they all reach about 4".