Deciding on catfish for African river tank

MarcW · Post by **MarcW** » 28 Apr 2020, 10:37

Hi All,

I really enjoy watching my Asian hill stream tank, and have decided to dedicate another tank to an African river setup. I can free up either a 3 or 4 feet long tank, both 18 inches front to back, and 12 inches tall. I'd prefer to have a group of smaller fish than 1 or 2 large fish.

The fish I have been looking at in the Cat-eLog so far are , , or similar. But as I have zero experience with African fish and in the past have rarely stopped to look at them in shops, I'd like to call on the knowledge of people here to make suggestions of which fish might be reasonably easy to get hold of and work in a highish flow tank, likely with a group of African barbs or tetras.

I did consider a group of but think I'd prefer the catfish on the bottom, with other fish higher up in the water.

Thanks!

N0body Of The Goat · Post by **N0body Of The Goat** » 30 Apr 2020, 07:17

My ~280l 4-foot long tank has had the following fish in Southampton's tap water for 7-10 years, sharing the same tank since at least 2012, roughly in order of where they spend time top to bottom...

1x ~4cm SL male Halfbeak (tank born during Italian F1 GP in 2012 iirc)
6/7(?)x ~6cm SL mix of female Congo Tetras and Alestopetersius sp.1
~15x ~5cm SL
10x ~6/7cm SL
2x ~4cm SL
1x ~9cm SL
6(?)x ~5/6cm SL African Banded Barb
10(?)x ~5cm Dwarf Chain Loaches
1x ~10cm SL

Numbers of the social fish have dwindled over the years, besides S. congica they all started off in groups of 12+, with 25 P. mandevillei.

Old poor quality clip showing some inhabitants...

I've been meaning to move my last two remaining ~7/8cm SL back in there for a while. I've also been tempted to move my female ~6cm SL African Butterfly Fish in with them since her mate died last year, but even though she has always been picky about how big she likes her broken pieces of Ciclid XL floating sticks (~5mm long max), I've always been worried that maybe she would have a good try at eating my male halfbeak who is only ~8-10mm top to bottom!

It's a very peaceful tank compared to the relative "rough and tumble" of my 6-foot African river tank...
6x ~18cm SL Distichodus affinis
1x ~30cm SL Distichodus rostratus
2x ~12cm SL Ctenopoma acutirostre
1x ~16cm SL Xenomytus nigri
1x ~22cm SL
1x ~18cm SL
1x ~15cm SL
3x ~17cm SL
1x ~12cm SL
3x ~18cm SL
1x ~30cm SL

My ~24cm SL used to live in the 6-footer until one day I saw the fish "yawn" to reveal a ~6cm diameter chasm that could in theory swallow the S. brichardi, E. guentheri, S. schoutedeni and the X. nigri!

MarcW · Post by **MarcW** » 30 Apr 2020, 07:55

Thanks for the reply, sounds like you have a couple of interesting African tanks.

I'm not far from you, the especially sound interesting, did you find them locally?

N0body Of The Goat · Post by **N0body Of The Goat** » 30 Apr 2020, 11:25

MarcW wrote: ↑30 Apr 2020, 07:55 Thanks for the reply, sounds like you have a couple of interesting African tanks.

I'm not far from you, the
Euchilichthys guentheri
especially sound interesting, did you find them locally?

A lot of my African fish including the Euchilichthys came from Amazon Aquatics in Warminster, which sadly closed down ~5 years ago around the time they were due to move from the town centre to a garden centre on the outskirts, with Mike (the owner) sourcing them from Neil Hardy Aquatics if I recall correctly.

I had a scary start with them, couldn't get them eating for almost a month. As they've grown from ~9cm SL to ~18cm SL, they've become incredibly intolerant of each other, but a meeting results in a sub ~2 second mouth-mouth squabble before they part ways into different areas of the tank.

There is a very real possibility that I may need to drastically cut back on tanks and fish sometime after the current lockdown ends, as we hope to finally get on the housing ladder in the near future and realistically we won't have space for the four 4-foot+ tanks currently in use.

racoll · Post by **racoll** » 30 Apr 2020, 13:08

Hey Marc!

Those I got at Pier at the CSG meeting are fantastic, so I thoroughly recommend them if you can find any. They're incredibly lively and go absolutely mental if they smell any food.

Main problem with African fishes, as you know, is actually finding them in the shops. Only option really is to get out to as many shops as possible and see what you can get (might be difficult in current situation). Even in crappy shops you might find, for example, a few hiding in tank corner, or a few mixed in with some .

I would definitely say that from experience running a four-foot African tank for a while now, you would do well to avoid larger synos, no matter how tempting they are. I got some lovely a while back, but they were just too boisterous and cramped in there. Stick to the smaller, more chilled out ones.

My current stock:
- lovely little killi type for the surface layers, easy to find, pretty, breeds readily.
- very attractive, and much cheaper than the fancy new types currently available; sadly I only have one male left, and the females are quite drab; skittish initially, but fine now.
- you saw these at CSG; lovely chilled syno, a little timid but they have fitted in perfectly.
- only one left from a previous group that got hammered by the whitespot that the Alestopetersius brought with them

- not sure about the ID yet, lovely fish, just nuts.
A few other non-African randoms from other tanks (, ).

Previous stock:
- dream fish of mine, perfect in a big shoal, lovely demeanour, lost all to whitespot from the purchase

- gorgeous, but too boisterous so had to get rid of them.
- my first mormyrid, I'd like to try them again, but they are nasty to each other and also to catfishes, and need a lot of food (don't go on holiday for two weeks and expect them to be alive when you come back).
- lovely little cichlid, but they died, I think because I was feeding too many frozen bloodworms.

Some shops where I've seen decent African fishes:
Pier @ Wigan
Aqualife @ Wigan
Maidenhead @ St Albans
Wildwoods @ Enfield
Wholesale Tropicals @ Bethnal Green

I'm sure there are others. Let me know if you find anything fun. I actually started a thread a while back on African stockists in the UK, and featured a picture of my tank about two days before it went to s**t (all the moss and plants died when I cranked up the heat to kill the whitespot). viewtopic.php?f=8&t=45770.

MarcW · Post by **MarcW** » 30 Apr 2020, 14:43

N0body Of The Goat wrote: ↑30 Apr 2020, 11:25
There is a very real possibility that I may need to drastically cut back on tanks and fish sometime after the current lockdown ends, as we hope to finally get on the housing ladder in the near future and realistically we won't have space for the four 4-foot+ tanks currently in use.

You should get on to the estate agent, they must find you somewhere with enough space! Good luck with your search, I have noticed the housing market in the past year or two around here at least has been a bit unpredictable.

Thanks for the advice on the shops, I'll keep my eyes open!

MarcW · Post by **MarcW** » 30 Apr 2020, 14:50

Thanks for the detailed reply Rupert, I'm not really drawn to Syno's so will hopefully avoid any issues with aggression.

I remember you getting those Amphilius, and briefly discussing them with you. Just shows how I lack any knowledge of African fish as I assumed they were South American! Did you get them all or were there some left?

I've seen (on the internet) some nice Arnoldichthys spilopterus very reasonably priced, so I was thinking of a group of them with, hopefully a group of Amphilius or Chiloglanis on the bottom. I'm planning high flow and cobbles, with a bit of wood, and some bolbitus. Similar layout to my Asian hill stream tank but with African fish!

Deciding on catfish for African river tank

Deciding on catfish for African river tank

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