PlanetCatfish.com

hi folks
i tried searching the net for fish suited to hard water as well as with a ph of 8.0 but no success...can anyone suggest any cats i can keep with these water parameters??.help plse!!

The Synodontis species can be a choice. I don't know much about them, but some of them come from Malawi and Tanganyika lakes in Africa, which are quite hard and alkalik water, so high pH and dH would be better for these fish than for instance the ones from South America.

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Mats

tk u mats...any other species that cum close to these parameters?

I'm sure there are. I just don't know which ones.

Of course, if you're just after fish that matches the "hard/alkalic" water parameter, you'll probably find the Cichlids from the same region (and I'd be surprise there isn't other fish than Cichlids and Catfish in that same region).

Unfortunately, the Cat-eLog doesn't have a way of listing fish with a certain criteria in respect of water condition or temperature, for instance.

The way to find fish that likes a particular water condition is to find a region that naturally has those water conditions, and then finding what fish lives there... It's not necessarily trivial, but it's certainly a possibility.

Of course, you could just start using water softening chemicals, but that's expensive and needs to be done correctly to avoid poisoning the fish, for instance.

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Mats

Actually, it's possible to search for fish from Malawi (Lake Malawi has quite hard water too) in FishBase:

http://filaman.uni-kiel.de/Country/Coun ... ountry=454

If you go back to the home-page and search for countries around Lake Tanganyika, you may also find some hard-water resistant species that are commonly used in aquariums.

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Mats

You should be able the keep the following kinds of catfish apart from synos:

1. Freshwater ariids. Many of the Australasian species do well in hard water.

2. Piedmont stream fishes. Fish like Chaetostoma should do well in a hard water tank, provided that you acclimate them gradually to the water.

3. Even common species like bristlenoses do OK in hard water tanks, again if you gradually acclimate them to the water.

I'll add a few highly suitable fish to that list, because they're small:
Lophiobagrus cyclurus
Lophiobagrus brevispinis
Phyllonemus typus
all from Lake Tanganyika. none reach more than 4"/10 cm, and they're quite easy to keep, especially the Lophio's.

The Syno's from Malawi and Tanganyika are well worth the money, they're very diurnal as catfish go, very goodlooking and very active; and they range from tiny 8cm or so to >1foot monsters with an impressive price tag.

If you don't object to big fish; several Chrysichthys and Clarias are from there, but rarely imported; bagrus, Malapterurus and Auchenoglanis as well; all are pretty big, but fairly easy to keep if you have a huge tank.

tks folks
uve been a great help...and ur right...softening water is shiat expensive!!!

If you go to a garden center and purchase those Jiffy peat pellets in compressed disk form. They are quite economical, a few dollars for a package of 10 or 25 or several cents for just one. If you need to change your water chemistry give those a try.

Most of the common commercially bred catfish will be fine. (eg. bristlnose, Corydoras aeneus) as well as hardy fish like striped raphaels.

If your LFS has the same type of water as yours, then whatever they have in stock may be OK in your tank. as long as they've been acclimated properly.

racoll wrote:Most of the common commercially bred catfish will be fine. (eg. bristlnose, Corydoras aeneus) as well as hardy fish like striped raphaels.

If your LFS has the same type of water as yours, then whatever they have in stock will be OK in your tank. as long as they've been acclimated properly.

The exception is some not so honest LFS will have fish that dies after a few weeks in your tank, because the water that comes out of the tap slowly causes damage to them. Most fish will survive several days in "bad" water, but it may well cause permanent damage to them.

Also, some serious LFS will use softened or hardened water. So, ask on that account too.

Another thing to beware of is that in some places, the region supplied with water from one supplier may be very small. I know some people who live in Texas, and they have their own local water supply that is just for a the local community. It may have dramatically different water chemistry compared to the next bigger town down the road, where the water is supplied from a completely different source.

Here in England, as long as you live in a relatively densely populated area, the water will be supplied by a large company that makes the watwe supply fairly even, so I'm pretty sure my LFS has the same water chemistry as me.

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Mats

tks again guys
interestingly enuf my garden centre proposed using something called 'acid compost'to bring my ph down as they dont stock peat. unfortuneately noone could tell me if this was safe enuf for fish?..anyone can help on this?

Alvin,

Changing the pH of the water is something you can achieve in many ways.

Acidic compost, which you use for plants that don't like chalc, such as rhododendron, would probably be OK from a pH perspective. The trouble is that compost in general is fertilized to promote growth of the plants that you want to grow.

In an aquarium, this generally leads to algae, unless you've got a seriously fast-growing plants.

The other aspect is of course that even tho' it's cheaper than the other alternatives, it's still adding complication and cost to your aquarium hobby.

Sure, if you're dead certain that you want to keep fish X, then you have to make the right conditions for that specie. But if you're a little bit more open-minded about what fish you want to have in your tank, then there's plenty of fish that will live in fairly hard water with high pH.

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Mats

The exception is some not so honest LFS will have fish that dies after a few weeks in your tank, because the water that comes out of the tap slowly causes damage to them. Most fish will survive several days in "bad" water, but it may well cause permanent damage to them.

True. Thanks for pointing that out. especially for delicate species.

tks again...after all this im gonna take up birdwatching!!!