What Catfish Should I get

[IloveSturgeon]

I have a 55 gallon tank and looking to add a cool catfish to it, any suggestions?

 

[fishnatics]

Pictus cats are cool and stay active. Does better in a group. Raphael's are cool too but hide all the time. Pictus will max around 6" and Raphael will max around 9".

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

12 pictus would be nice!

 

[rodger]

I would suggest reading and get what YOU like. What we like doesn't matter. You don't say what else will be in the tank. That matters.

 

[Chicxulub]

I'd do pictus myself. They're gorgeous little things that look and act like much larger fish.

 

[IloveSturgeon]

thanks for the responses I went to lfs to see what they had and they had this cute little guy. I forget what he is called could anyone tell me?

 

[Chicxulub]

Synodontis multipunctatus

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

For OP's intents and purposes it is likely immaterial but...

Here is how to distinguish close-looking multipunctatus and grandiops. Also, my understanding is grandiops is by far and large more prevalent in the hobby, like 100 to 1 (?).

PCF: http://www.planetcatfish.com/common/species.php?species_id=710
General Remarks S. grandiops and S. multipunctatus are most reliably separated by pectoral-fin ray counts with S. grandiops having 1 pectoral fin spine with 7 soft rays and S. mutipunctatus having a count of 1, 8 . The soft pectoral-fin elements (i.e. the rays) are almost always branched (the only exception being the last one or two rays, which are sometimes unbranched) a ray is counted as one at its base before it branches out. Also keep in mind the larger adult size of S. multipunctatus.

 

[Chicxulub]

For OP's intents and purposes it is likely immaterial but...

Here is how to distinguish close-looking multipunctatus and grandiops. Also, my understanding is grandiops is by far and large more prevalent in the hobby, like 100 to 1 (?).

PCF: http://www.planetcatfish.com/common/species.php?species_id=710
General Remarks S. grandiops and S. multipunctatus are most reliably separated by pectoral-fin ray counts with S. grandiops having 1 pectoral fin spine with 7 soft rays and S. mutipunctatus having a count of 1, 8 . The soft pectoral-fin elements (i.e. the rays) are almost always branched (the only exception being the last one or two rays, which are sometimes unbranched) a ray is counted as one at its base before it branches out. Also keep in mind the larger adult size of S. multipunctatus.

So its a similar situation to Leiarius marmoratus and Perrunichthys perruno?

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

As a phenomenon, that is speaking qualitatively, I think yes.

Quantitatively, the ratio of marmoratus to perruno asymptotically approaches infinity (division by zero) as opposed to a 100:1