PlanetCatfish.com

A few days ago I visited a local LFS and stopped to peak at a 'rift-valley' style aquarium they had setup. I noticed a synodontis specie with striking coloring that I hadn't seen before. It looked much like an s. petricola, except there was quite a bit of blue on the tips of the pectoral, dorsal and tail fins -- a violetish-blue not unlike the coloring found on some malawi cichlids. The only thing that bothered me about this beautiful fish is that it got a little nippy with passing cichlids. However, these ARE african cichlids we're talking about and the tank was a little on the crowded side.

Sadly, the customer service was lacking that day and I wasn't able to get any info on the fish.. not to mention that the employees I've encountered there are rarely versed in more than your 'run of the mill' aquarium fish.

Just by poking through the species listed in the cat-e-log, I noticed one candidate that resembled it, but I'd have to get a second look at the store fish to be sure.

(Synodontis sp.4)

Since I'm not an expert on this family of fish, I've no idea if there are other species with similar coloring. Soo.. does anybody know the fish I'm talking about?

Synodontis sp. (4) in the Cat-eLog is an artificial hybrid.

Any thoughts on where these hybrids get their colors from?
Offhand I can't think of any Synodontis with blue fins or, as my hybrids had, metallic green body, and it didn't look like dye-jobs to me.

(I see that someone has tried to make my picture of my Synodontis sp3 in the cat-elog more beige, but the fish really had this color:
http://mikes-machine.mine.nu/synodontis/DSCN8477.JPG )

Any thoughts on where these hybrids get their colors from?

Some individuals of Synodontis rufigiensis have a bluish sheen.

Mike_Noren how big was that fish when you took this photo if I could ask?

According to the composite sketch on fishbase.org, Synodontis rufigiensis doesn't have the leopard-like pattern I saw on the fish at the store.

It honestly looked a lot like that hybrid.

I'm in the process of planning a rift valley tank and I may very well pick up one of these cats. In the even that I do, I'll be happy to send some new photos for the cat-e-log.

I forgot to mention... the common aquarium fish, zebra danios were genetically modified to produce more of a redish hue between the black stripes. Supposedly, if exposed to light, the red tissue will absorb it and glow in the dark. This was initially acheived by inserting a coral gene into the egg at a very early stage, but I guess they've since used similar genes from a number of different sources(anemones, etc.) with identical results.

I've seen a few in the store going for 10x the amount of a regular zebra danio, but they didn't look all that special to me. The bright red looked more like a dirty maroon and it wasn't evenly distributed across the fish's body.

Go here for more info; http://www.glofish.com

I don't know if this has anything to do with the coloring of synodontis hybrids, but it was just a thought, and sorta novel if anything.

worton[pl] wrote:Mike_Noren how big was that fish when you took this photo if I could ask?

Small. At a guesstimate 2-3". I bought them as S. multimaculatus.
I don't really know anything about Synodontis, but I had read that multimaculatus was a very small species.
And I got suckered.
I take it you mean that the metallic green "dusting" is juvenile coloration?