PlanetCatfish.com

basically a thread to put all those funny or bizarre things you have seen your catfish do.

No real limits, Possibly even non catfish in here.



My anec dote:
I used to have 5 small silver tipped tetras. currently I only have 2. I also used to have a 3 inch tandanus catfish, before it jumped tank. Anyway, one morning i come out and theres a small orange and silver tail sticking out of this catfish's mouth. There is still half of this silver tipped tetra sticking out. Ity must have being in this catfishes mouth for half the night before i got up, obviously not being able to swallow it. I eventually managed to convince it too spit it out by feeding it.

Another anecdot (non catfish)
In my tank I have a couple of huge goldfish (i kid you not, one of them is 8 inches or 20 cm) anyway, one day we get up and we cant find the bigger of these goldfish anywhere in the tank. At that time it was approximatly 12 cm long, still pretty large. We are looking around in the tank and the floor around the tank for about 20 minutes. At that time we had a large shell in the tank. We picked the shell out of the tank and shook it a bit, and out flopped a half dead gold fish. It must have went into the shell some time at night and been unable to turn around and get out. Remarkably, it survived. The other goldfish we had at the time swam above it all day, stopping the catfish from floating to the surface because it couldnt swim. It also chased of a swordtail that was attacking the gold fish that was stuck in the shell. That big goldfish is still alive today.

The morals of these story:
1. dont mix big fish with small fish
2. dont mix big fish with small shells

For a while I've been meaning to write down some of the things my 8" common plecos gets up to with his best buddy, a 4" terrapin.

They used to get into nasty fights, with the terrapin nipping fins left, right and centre. The pleco has lost the tip of both pectoral spines as a result. The pleco would respond by slam-dunking the terrapin around the tank.

Anyway, that was a few months ago. The terrapin has stopped nipping and the plecos fins have all grown back (apart from the tips of its pectoral fins).

Now they have all manner of peaceful interactions, including the terrapin falling asleep on top of the pleco, the pleco gently rasping the terrain's carapace or gently nudging him to the surface when the terrapin has lost its bouyancy and is struggling to swim upwards.

They still "fight" but it is much less agressive. They do quite a bit of "eyeballing" -- when their eyballs literally touch and the terrapin does this weird little dance with its front legs, rapidly jabbing its claws at the pleco's face (but never touching). The pleco still slam-dunks the terrapin, but its all pretty friendly. It looks like he's just seeing how well he can throw the terrapin.

I've been trying to get rid of the terrapin for ages, but no one I know with an appropriate set-up want to touch him with a bargepole. Now I have the additional problem of rehousing these guys as a pair!

Another really weird incident, also involving Bob the terrapin, happened just the other night, after lights out. The terrapin was in the water, hanging onto a rock with just one claw. His eyes were tight shut and neck fully extended and arched backwards. With him was my 5" Nimbochromis venustus in a trance, gently stroking the terrapin's outstretched neck. I watched for a full 10 minutes before curiousity got the better of me and I reached into the tank and stroked the Nimochromis. I could have lifted it up out of the tank is was so relaxed. Very strange.

Here's one for ya.

A buddy of mine got the idea to dig a pond in his yard. He got it done, let rain water fill it and had a state biologist come take a look, to check the water conditions. Biologist said everything looked good and he was ready to stock it.

He ordered up some largemouth bass, bluegill, and threadfin shad, put them all in the pond and let things go for a few months. Everything was lookin' great so he started fishing the pond a little, flyrodding with popping bugs mostly. Anyway he fished it for about a year and had a blast catching and releasing bass and bluegill.

Then, one sping, he got a lot of rain and his pond flooded. He let things settle for a while and tried to fish it a few months later. Nothing, not a nibble, not even an interested pop on his bug. After a month of flycasting practice, he pulled the trigger and ordered some more fish, figuring that his must have left with the flood. He put those in and again let things settle for a few months.

Finally, he tried fishing it. Nothing on the bug. He tried earthworms, still nothing. As a last resort he started throwing bread and grasshoppers onto the water's surface hoping to see some sign of life. Not a thing, even the shad were gone. He called the biologist out abd they checked the water quality again, but everything looked fine.

As a last resort he rented a pump and drained the little pond. After a day of slow pumping he found the answer. On the bottom, in the sticks and mud was a yellow catfish, also known as a flathead. And WHAT a flathead. He captured the beast and weighed it prior to setting it free in a larger river near his home. Turns out that a few hundred dollars worth of stocking fish and a good flood equates out to a shade over 43 pounds worth of flathead catfish in western Alabama. All those stockers were like Oreos to that behemoth.

My corys like to sit on my banjo catfish.
They don't give rides tho

And my Upside Down Synos like to hang with my Hoplos....even tho my Hoplos are much bigger and look completely different

Some years ago, my cousin got a "new" tank.
He bought a bigger tank from a guy who had connections with the local importer, a nice 720 liter tank with pumps, closet; the whole thing.

He asked me to help him, as he bought it including fish. He didn't want most of the fish, so my reward for helping him out was several fish, including some Loricariids.

So we went, siphoning out hundreds of liters, packing plants in buckets, cathing and bagging all kinds of fish (some big Geophagus, Sturisoma, L numbers, Barilius etc)

At one time we took out all the bogwood (wich were enormous 1 meter pieces), did a cat-check and put them outside in the garden.

it was februari some year, feezing 11 degrees centigrade below zero! one of the few winters the famous Dutch 11-cities-skating-race was held, actually it was live on the telly!

Once we cleared the tank (only some wet sand remained) the former owner mused that we didn't encounter a big black Ancistrus...?

No, we didn't. Checked buckets with fish, no Bristlenose. Checked plants, no bristlenose. Checked empty tank, sieving the sand...no.

Then I got up and went outside into the teeth of a snowing blizzard! The guys told I was nuts, if any fish was stuck in that wood, it'd be dead.
The wood had already spend like 3 hours laying in the snow at minus 11'C.

And LO! and behold; in a piece of wood, I found him!
completely motionless, gillspines out, fins blocked, snow on him, icecrystals on his gill-openings and finrays.....

I took it inside, despite the others joking about popsicles and such, put it in a bucket with tankwater. That water felt scalding hot to my frozen fingers as well; the black spiny Ancistrus went to the bottom like a stone, not moving anything.
I started pulling it backwards in "eightlike" movements through the water, to jumpstart it. It's an old trick to "bring life" into Loricariids that have had a shutdown.
Took me about three minutes or so, but suddely
SPLOOSH
and that vicious black monster wrapped itself around my hand, trying to bury it's gillspines into a few fingers.

That particular bristlenose has lived on for years. It's the biggest, blackest most bad tempered BN I've ever seen, spiny like an Acanthicus!

Sid... thats got to be one of the best fish anacdotes I've heard in ages!.....

cheers!

I used to keep a 21" Ictalurus that was so agressive, any object in the water was attacked. It even made a habit of "playing" tug of war with the net after it was introduce.