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is there a way to tell from a picture the differences between Tanganyika Syno's? S. dhonti is much higher priced than S. multipunctatus. Just wondering if there's a huge difference in the 2 and why the price difference. Thanks in advance.

The differences in color and head shape are obvious enough. Check the pics in the Cat-eLog.

S dhonti is rare in the trade.
it's usually a by-catch if an LFS gets a box with unsorted Syno's from the lake.

youngsters can "hide" in shipments of petricola or polli, but differ quite a bit from multipunctatus, wich lessens the chances of them being a by-catch with those.

when very young (2" or smaller) they're next to impossible to separate from polli, tanganicae etc; unless you're very experienced and know where to look for characteristics.

It's a very peaceful fish; much more so than petricola or polli; shy too.
it gets really big; but for some reason unknown to me; captive specimen tend to stop growing at 5-7" or so; unless imported at a larger size.
I've yet to see a dhonti without spots; they're supposed to loose them as adults.
the biggest dhonti I've ever seen was about 8-9" and still quite spotty.

One give-away: turn them over! multipunctatus are unique among tangies with an unspotted belly.....

sidguppy wrote:One give-away: turn them over! multipunctatus are unique among tangies with an unspotted belly.....

Not trues, Sid, Some multis DO have spots on their bellies.

Happy New Year.

Dinyar

I've yet to see one, but I'll believe you...

some of those Goldeneyes, or another Zambian subspecies?

maybe I should have pointed him to "big eyes, long whiskers etc".

would the pictured be of s. dhonti? and if so, would a s. cf dhonti with orange colored fins be a good buy for arround $89?

your picture definitely looks like a dhonti.

Orange fins?
there are NO Syno's in Lake Tanganyika with orange fins!
all have either black&white or spotted fins.....

sure it's not some hybrid?

the orange fins are either a teratology or possibly a recessive trait. other than the orange hued fins it looks just like the pictured fish.

Than it's definitely a hybrid!
S dhonti has very nice contrasting black and white fins; esp the dorsal, caudal and pectoral fins....

best lay off "colored" fish or hybrids....

The bottom picture looks like mine,they are a very nice cat.The fins are similar to large petricola with colors reversed.Mine was mixed with other group of cats I bought nice suprise.They are pretty hard to find and always cost quite a bit where I am located.

The top photo above is S. tanganaicae, the bottom is S. dhonti. Armke's has many misidentified Synodontis on their website, beware.

Here are two photos of S. dhonti losing their spots. It is a very slow transition. I have had these specimens for almost two years and they have grown about 1/2 inch in that period. The first photo is of an 8 inch specimen, the bottom photo is of a 6 inch specimen:






These photos were taken in a tank with very low lighting to increase Synodontis activity. The photos were taken with a Canon 20D dSLR at ISO 3200 with no flash to keep from scaring them away. As you can see they are quite noisy with flat colors.

To compare with a 5 inch which just started to turn over in color not shown in picture.
Greggo, are they becoming the same color as Granulosus exept for the with on the fins? I'm keeping these two in the same tank and they seem to like eachother.

jolly_polli wrote:Greggo, are they becoming the same color as Granulosus exept for the with on the fins?

No, I would say that they are different. The granulosus range from a dark charcoal to ink black coloration. The dhontis are more of a medium gray so far. This may change as they get older.