S. Angelicus

angel · Post by **angel** » 01 Mar 2003, 23:22

Hia all,

Hoping you can help us pick another fish for our tank. It's a 120 L tank (52"x12"x12") that at the moment contains 6 zebra danios, 4 penguin tetras (our dither fish), 6 Corydoras Panda and 4 ottos. The purpose of the tank is to house a S. Angelicus which we've had in a smaller tank for the past 4 weeks (whilst waiting for the larger tank to fully mature). At the moment it's about 2 1/2 inches but has grown at least 1/2 " since we bought it even though we've yet to see it eat ! It's hobby is to swim in the bubbles from an airstone when the lights go off, and hide upside down under a piece of wood for most of the day. I realise it's going to grow BIG and probably get ugly, but we'd like another catfish that we could happily keep. Tried some zebra loaches, but the angelicus made it plain that they were not welcome in it's tank ! After a bit of researching we have a few in mind

S. Nigriventris (would the angelicus be a bit miffed with a shoal of 6, and I've read that most of these are not S. Nigriventris and turn out to be something bigger?),

Any of the smaller Hopolo spp.

A shoal of Brochis splendens (emerald catfish),

a dwarf pleco or two (some of the L numbers we've seen in the lfs are zebra pleco (too expensive) and a golden nugget plec (but looks like the angelicus, so presumably world war three would result), but they have said they can get a wide variety of catfish)

Some more Corydoras panda

or (not catfish I know ...) some Khulli Loaches (would they end up as a tasty treat ?) or geophagus cichlids.

What sort of fish have other people kept sucessfully with an Angelicus ?

Thanks for the help, and sorry for the long post.

Post by **Dinyar** » 02 Mar 2003, 06:08

The S. nigriventris you mentioned might bee a good choice. Personally, I prefer to not mix continents to the extent possible.

Just stay away from big black fish. S. angelicus sees these as competition and will get nasty with them.

Dinyar

STINGRAY · Post by **STINGRAY** » 02 Mar 2003, 19:04

Try a small Syno Decorous. They tend to shy away from fighting so the Angel will leave them alone after a small period of investigation. Both of these fish can reach 30cm eventually, so future housing will need to be considered and both will eat your smaller fish. So Nigriventris will certainly be a better bet longterm

Post by **Dinyar** » 02 Mar 2003, 19:51

STINGRAY wrote:Try a small Syno Decorous.

As you imply, Stingray, a S. decorus that is small today will in 2-3 years be > 15 cm, and a few years later, be pushing 30 cm. Not a good choice for a 120 liter tank, IMO, unless one had a much larger tank to move it to in a few years.

Dinyar

angel · Post by **angel** » 02 Mar 2003, 21:49

Thanks for your input. In the forseeable future we won't have enough space for a bigger tank (unless we move house ...) so that kind of scuppers the idea of any larger synos, and I think one angelicus with be more than enough. Quite fancy the idea of S. Nigriventris but we're a bit worried that they commonly are mis-identified and we don't want to end up with 6 S. Nigrita or Eupterus (which would probably push up our bioload to somewhat over the comfortable level). If we decide to go with the upside down catfish, is there a good way to positively ID them, or do we have to wait till it gets bigger than it should ? Would the angelicus be a bit agressive or would it be safety in numbers ? Looking through the cat-eLog and the S. Flaviaeniatus looks very nice. I'd imagine it'd be expensive so it would be nice to see it more than once a year! I guess it'll be back to looking at nice pictures and cutting the list down from there.

BTW, Dinyar why do you not like to mix continents ? I thought that most "hard to breed" fish are comercially bred in big vats somewhere in the far east using buckets of hormones, so they've probably never seen africa. Maybe I'm wrong though !

Post by **Silurus** » 02 Mar 2003, 21:58

Quite fancy the idea of S. Nigriventris but we're a bit worried that they commonly are mis-identified and we don't want to end up with 6 S. Nigrita or Eupterus (which would probably push up our bioload to somewhat over the comfortable level).

If you take some pics at the LFS and post it here, we should be able to identify the fish for you.

Post by **Dinyar** » 03 Mar 2003, 14:48

angel wrote:BTW, Dinyar why do you not like to mix continents ? I thought that most "hard to breed" fish are comercially bred in big vats somewhere in the far east using buckets of hormones, so they've probably never seen africa. Maybe I'm wrong though !

I just wrote a long reply to your post, only to get an "invalid session" and lose what I'd written.

But here's a simple analogy: it's a bit like pouring ketchup on your sushi. Most peple wouldn't think that would taste very good. Part of the reason is that sushi and ketchup didn't "evolve" together. (If otoh, someone likes ketchup on sushi, that's OK too.)

Now whether the ketchup was made with hormones in a vat in the far east or the sushi was made organically in New York really wouldn't have much bearing on how well the two would go together, assuming that the products still tasted like ketchup and sushi.

Dinyar

coelacanth · Post by **coelacanth** » 03 Mar 2003, 22:00

angel wrote:Looking through the cat-eLog and the S. Flaviaeniatus looks very nice. I'd imagine it'd be expensive so it would be nice to see it more than once a year! I guess it'll be back to looking at nice pictures and cutting the list down from there.
BTW, Dinyar why do you not like to mix continents ?

I know Cardiff is a way off Bolton, but I have a S. flavitaeniatus at work looking for a good home. Let me think about it, there are some good pubs in Cardiff that might be worth the trek (my partner used to work at the NMGW, and she always likes to go back).

In the case of mixing continents, it's partly a 'Zen' thing, and partly common sense when it comes to interspecific interaction. It always looks just so much better when you know all the fish in an aquarium originated in the same drainage, and the chances are they'll understand each other's aggression signals before it gets dangerous.

Sid Guppy · Post by **Sid Guppy** » 05 Mar 2003, 12:16

Just a hunch; but adding a single Syno in a tank that small with an angelicus already there, is a recipe for one dead syno; if I ever saw one...

You get the famous "Ping till you Pong" effect; wich means two fish constantly chasing/harassing each other, until one dies. Knowing the temperamental soul of the Angel-cat, my money's on him....
The best way to combine S angelicus with other syno's; is to make the second species a group of small, different syno's. I say 'different' in behaviour.
You need a bigger tank for this too.
But adding very shy peaceful syno's with him is a no-go.
Some no-go's:
-Flavitaeniatus
-decorus
-pleurops
-contractus
-brichardi
Unless you have a >150G tank (600 liters or bigger); then you can combine at will; but still stay away from TWO syno's at all costs (Three is no good either here; wich will mean 1 angelicus and 2 shy ones)

angel · Post by **angel** » 05 Mar 2003, 20:37

SG_Eurystomus,

Thanks for the advice. Do you think that a small shoal of 6 S. Nigriventris would be a bad combo with our Angelicus ? If so, we may just leave the tank as it is or maybe add a cichlid or two. One thing we don't want is to end up with a tank full of sushi covered in ketchup!

MultiPunk · Post by **MultiPunk** » 06 Mar 2003, 15:41

I have put a deposit down on a 6" adult angel cat at the LFS, and am looking for tankmates. I had been recommended a small group (4) of syno. multipunctus, what would you guys think? Right continent at least but are they compatible? I had also thought about a young red-tailed black shark but is another black fish a bad idea as Dinya suggests? I wouldn't be sad to drop the shark as it's Asian but the kids love 'em!!

Post by **Silurus** » 06 Mar 2003, 15:52

<i>Synodontis angelicus</i> and <i>S. multipunctatus</i> require different types of water, so I don't think they should be put together in the same tank.

MultiPunk · Post by **MultiPunk** » 06 Mar 2003, 15:55

Tell me more please.
Mine is pH 7.8-8.2, 10 gH. I thought they would both be OK with that?

Post by **Silurus** » 06 Mar 2003, 16:11

Sounds like it may be a little bit more suitable for the multipunctatus.

Post by **Dinyar** » 06 Mar 2003, 16:18

Silurus is of course right about the different water chemistry of S. angelicus' native habitat relative to S. multipunctatus. In practice, almost all Synos that I have any experience with will do OK in harder water with a pH of up to 8.0.

You COULD mix the multis with the angelicus if you really want to, but personally, I'd prefer not to. Apart from the different water conditions, the angelicus will look like a whale compared to the multis, which stay much smaller. Their temperaments are also very different, with the angelicus a sulky bully and the multis gregarious little party animals.

S. nigriventris would be a better choice, IMO.

Dinyar

angel · Post by **angel** » 08 Mar 2003, 21:50

Hey guys,

Our lfs has some "xxl" S. Eupterus and they are big ! We've decided to get 4 S. Nigriventris but don't want to end up with the big, big, S. Eupterus. We've read that both species look very much alike as juveniles, so is there a good way of distinguishing these species. We don't have a digital camera so posting pictures would be a bit difficult.

One of the (many) suprising things that I've found surfing this website is how popular the Angelicus appears to be. As it's a "big sulky bully" I'm kind of amazed that it's so popular. What do other people keep them with ?

As a further aside, what do people feed their Angelicus ? We give ours flake and catfish pellets, some freeze-dried bloodworm, tubfex, krill and brineshrimp and frozen blooodworm and daphnia. Our angelicus has grown by about an inch in the 2 months that we've had it, but in that time we've never seen it eat. Once we tried live adult brineshrimp but it wasn't interested and shortly after one of our Panda Cory's died (must have been attributable to the food as it was in perfect health beforehand and went from swimming upright to dead in about 1 hour). As a consequence of this, livefood is now definitely off the menu, until we get to culture it ourselves (probably a thread on it's own...)

Thank you for all your help, I'm sure you've stopped us making stupid mistakes that probably would have resulted in lots of needless fishy deaths. The info on distinguishing S. Eupterus, S. Nigriventris and S. Nigrita will hopefully be helpful to more than just multiplunk and me. How did people get along without the internewt !!

MultiPunk · Post by **MultiPunk** » 09 Mar 2003, 17:19

aye, thanks very much moderators, or diolch yn fawr iawn as they say in Wales!

I've decided to leave the angel cat on his own with the congo tetras just so I can watch him for a while and work out what sort of character he is! One of those things with buying an adult who's been returned to the lfs - it might be that he outgrew his tank, it might be because he was a right bar steward!!

It'll have to be a new tank for the multipunctatus - shame eh?
As Angel says, the internewt is a "fabbalus" thing but I've been amazed at the contradictory info out there, you have to assess for yourself how relevant or reliable you think the opinion is.

As for the angel cats, well it seems to me that these creatures have individual character traits, as much a product of their environment as the rest of us!
but at the end of the day, you only have to look at one of those angel cats to understand why they're popular
cheers
multipunk