Yangtze Albino

wednesday13 · Jul 25, 2024

surfermike915 said:
Here’s a pic I snagged of one of wes’ last imports of glanis. Dream fish. I cannot lie. It’s funny as we want what we can’t have. I think if I couldn’t have Chinese wels but could have euro I would go to the ends of the earth to get my Chinese wels.

These guys have been found in the Amur river correct? If that’s true that means I could possibly keep the big boy in my pond. Here in New Jerz the winters are fierce. He survived in my tank last year in the unheated part of the fish garage. Lethargic yes, but fine. My plan was to build it for the bambusa but that’s a whole different story lol.

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Speaking of personality; in my opinion Chinese wels as they get older get more bold. Granted my guy lives in a dark tank but when he doesn’t feel startled he patrols his tank all over the water column, and cruises like a missile. Very easy to hand feed. I’m going to use the warm weather we will get till about early October to get him fattened up.

Had both of those

… i kept 2 regs and 1 albino together for a while… quickly learned they needed to be solo. Glad i got the chance tho i guess. As for these “chinese” im pretty positive u have S. Merdionalis and i have S. Asotus.
Average size for Asotus seems to be 8-10lbs. Apparently they grow the largest in south korea up to 50lbs. Your’s should end up alot larger around and a meter+. I keep zooming in on Vincents speciemen to inspect its lower jaw and i just cant tell which one it is. Id have to guess S. Meridionalis just due to its size of over a meter already.

Both species seem to overlap ranges and theres mention of hybrids between the two being made for food. Asotus are all over china, japan and korea. I did also read a short snippet about S. Asotus having 6 barbels at fry/juvenile size then they lose 2 as they grow. That would explain the very small “chinese wels” we’ve seen pop up recently with 6 whiskers weve been unable to I.D. You were def. correct in that 2 species come in as “chinese”. Surprised it took me so long to figure out which one i had

… wernt many around back in 2016 to compare.

wednesday13 · Jul 25, 2024

surfermike915 1st pic is probably the average size i should expect on my Asotus. Not terrible lol… not that great either tho

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2nd pic was an anomaly of a large specimen from korea caught and kept at a museum for children to see. They released it after a few months. Added the snippet of info about the juvies and 6 barbels also. Id kinda like to get a meridionalis now and see which one truly ends up larger. Pretty sure its not Asotus tho lol…

jjohnwm · Jul 25, 2024

surfermike915 said:
...It’s funny as we want what we can’t have. I think if I couldn’t have Chinese wels but could have euro I would go to the ends of the earth to get my Chinese wels.

This is so true; the "grass is always greener" syndrome. There are lots of fish that are interesting enough...but because they are illegal or otherwise unobtainable, they are elevated to exalted status by many aquarists. Meanwhile, other similar species...which may be more attractive or more colourful or have more interesting behaviour...are largely ignored simply because they are common and easily obtained. U.S. aquarists are constantly wringing their hands and wailing because they can't have Asian arowanas...but as a Canadian, I know that right now I could drive into Winnipeg and take my pick from at least a half-dozen or more of those fish in a LFS that stocks them continuously. Up here...they're just fish.

On the other hand, I am lusting after some species that the gummint says I can't be trusted with...simple stuff like gar, bowfin, any species of wels...while you Yankees just yawn and walk right by them. I kept gar and bowfin for many years while living in another province, but now they are verboten to me...which of course makes them an object of desire.

...Here in New Jerz the winters are fierce...

Lol, you're funny...

surfermike915 · Jul 25, 2024

wednesday13 said:
surfermike915 1st pic is probably the average size i should expect on my Asotus. Not terrible lol… not that great either tho .
2nd pic was an anomaly of a large specimen from korea caught and kept at a museum for children to see. They released it after a few months. Added the snippet of info about the juvies and 6 barbels also. Id kinda like to get a meridionalis now and see which one truly ends up larger. Pretty sure its not Asotus tho lol…
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I’m 99.99% certain true Chinese wels are the larger by far. I’ve heard them getting around 110 lbs. which doesn’t seem all that far fetched. In the 90’s they started to become heavily farmed as with Chinese perch. I think given ample opportunity and space, a true mer wels can grow to maybe 5.5’ feet with some girth to it as well. But I expect mine to stop at 2.5’. I really am surprised at how similar they look to Glanis sometimes, especially the albinos. Not the golden ones just the albinos in particular. Asostus are a beautiful fish, crazy how large and similar to a leerii that second one is. Either way yours is dope.

wednesday13 · Jul 25, 2024

surfermike915 said:
I’m 99.99% certain true Chinese wels are the larger by far. I’ve heard them getting around 110 lbs. which doesn’t seem all that far fetched. In the 90’s they started to become heavily farmed as with Chinese perch. I think given ample opportunity and space, a true mer wels can grow to maybe 5.5’ feet with some girth to it as well. But I expect mine to stop at 2.5’. I really am surprised at how similar they look to Glanis sometimes, especially the albinos. Not the golden ones just the albinos in particular. Asostus are a beautiful fish, crazy how large and similar to a leerii that second one is. Either way yours is dope.

Only time will tell for both of us… really does take a good 10-20yrs for most large fish to even get “large” 3-4’… aside from a few like glanis, pima, corruscans who attain that in 1-5 yrs.

Fallen_Leaves16 · Sep 3, 2024

wednesday13 said:
Had both of those … i kept 2 regs and 1 albino together for a while… quickly learned they needed to be solo. Glad i got the chance tho i guess. As for these “chinese” im pretty positive u have S. Merdionalis and i have S. Asotus.
Average size for Asotus seems to be 8-10lbs. Apparently they grow the largest in south korea up to 50lbs. Your’s should end up alot larger around and a meter+. I keep zooming in on Vincents speciemen to inspect its lower jaw and i just cant tell which one it is. Id have to guess S. Meridionalis just due to its size of over a meter already.

Both species seem to overlap ranges and theres mention of hybrids between the two being made for food. Asotus are all over china, japan and korea. I did also read a short snippet about S. Asotus having 6 barbels at fry/juvenile size then they lose 2 as they grow. That would explain the very small “chinese wels” we’ve seen pop up recently with 6 whiskers weve been unable to I.D. You were def. correct in that 2 species come in as “chinese”. Surprised it took me so long to figure out which one i had … wernt many around back in 2016 to compare.

...Can't believe I never made the connection. You're right, Silurus asotus do start off with six barbels and end up with four; and they look a bit odd when little- a patchy brownish colour, with a white lateral line; much like those weird meridionalis that've been coming in.
I would know; the building my dad grew up in has a little catfish stew restaurant down the road, and they stuffed this outdoor seafood tank thing with either a bunch of tiny asotus, Pelteobagrus fulvidraco, or large asotus; I would pause to watch the catfish when I passed by. I recall asking my mom to ask one of the employees if I could buy a small S. asotus from them- much to my chagrin, they wouldn't sell me one.
No clue if the barbels fall off or shrink, though.
There is what I think is a massive asotus in one of the public aquariums in S. Korea; I remember seeing it some number of years ago. Must've been at least 15 kilos- the fish was big enough to probably be able to eat some of the juvenile grass carp it was kept with; and was about a meter in length, if my faulty memory serves me right. Ridiculously fat thing; I dunno what the staff were feeding it. Supposedly the fish was caught in the Han River in Seoul, or some similar large river of the sort. Can't remember the details, though I'm 95% sure it was a massive asotus.
There were a few "normal" sized asotus in one of their native fish exhibits, and they had a rather pretty albino in a tiny cylindrical display tank.

jjohnwm · Sep 3, 2024

Back a few months ago, there was a thread here on MFK regarding the identity of some of the Chinese Wels that various members owned. I was very interested, as I had not yet learned that all Silurus were banned in my province. I recall looking at the pics and immediately noticing that some of the fish had 6 barbels and others only 4. As I was typing that out in a response back then, my wife happened to glance over my shoulder, read the paragraph as I finished it...she's nosy... and casually said "Maybe they lose some of those whisker things as they get bigger?"

I held my tongue; I thought that was about the most unlikely, ridiculous and nonsensical thing I'd heard that day...and her brother and sister-in-law were visiting at the time, so I'd heard plenty! The very notion of catfish losing barbels as they grew! Preposterous!

But now here we are...

wednesday13 · Sep 3, 2024

jjohnwm said:
Back a few months ago, there was a thread here on MFK regarding the identity of some of the Chinese Wels that various members owned. I was very interested, as I had not yet learned that all Silurus were banned in my province. I recall looking at the pics and immediately noticing that some of the fish had 6 barbels and others only 4. As I was typing that out in a response back then, my wife happened to glance over my shoulder, read the paragraph as I finished it...she's nosy... and casually said "Maybe they lose some of those whisker things as they get bigger?"

I held my tongue; I thought that was about the most unlikely, ridiculous and nonsensical thing I'd heard that day...and her brother and sister-in-law were visiting at the time, so I'd heard plenty! The very notion of catfish losing barbels as they grew! Preposterous!

But now here we are...

Thought never crossed my mind either… 1st account ive heard of this happening. As i was digging down the worm hole trying to properly i.d. my own fish i read a caption under a picture about it. I received my specimen at 4.5-5” and it had 4 whiskers. The “shedding” must occur around the 1-3” size.

surfermike915 · Sep 4, 2024

From what I have seen, they merely stop growing and disappear. Almost like a Giant Mekong Catfish. Asostus is primarily the ones that show this between 1"-3.5". From what I have learned, true Chinese Wels which is S. Meridionalis never has the presence of a third set of barbels. This is just what I have gathered. Hope this helps.