Hey all!
I'm at it again!
I've gotten a fish that is, as far as I can tell, completely absent from the hobby. Ictalurus furcatus, the blue catfish from North America!
I've had these guys before. As a matter of fact, at this time of my posting this an older thread containing pictures of my last one was recently bumped. While these fish are related to the common channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus, I've found them to be nothing like a channel cat in personality. Blues are bold, they're active swimmers, and they're afraid of nothing. They don't hide like channels do, they swim constantly in the middle to bottom third of the tank. They seem to be much more predatory than channel cats are and mine have been equally active during the day as during the night. Their personality and behavior actually reminds me of an iridescent shark more than a channel cat.
I picked this fish up today from the local fish farm. It was seined out of the pond about 6pm central time, which is why it looks so rough. I have it in a 20 long quarantine tank right now, I want to make sure it's stable before it goes in the big tank with my expensive fish.
When I brought it in and my wife looked at it, she immediately said "I like that fish, it's name is Marilyn".
I was somewhat flabbergasted at this, as the best I can normally hope for from my wife is ambivalence. The apparent interest caught me off guard, but I still managed to ask her why she wanted to call it Marilyn.
Her reply was "it's got big red lips and pretty eyes like Marilyn Monroe, so its a girl and her name is Marilyn."
I was like
But I rolled with it.
So, without further adieu, I give you Marilyn the blue catfish:
And the setup. I've had the bio seeding for about two months in preparation for this so she's good good filtration. The goldies are in there for her to pick off at her leisure, as you can see she's pretty thin. I normally have the powerhead kicking out lots of bubbles, but I turned it off for the pictures. The heater is currently off, she came from 50* water so I want to let her get used to room temperature first. I filled her tank halfway with water from my big tank and halfway with cold sink water.
The blackwater tank water is responsible for the yellowish look to everything, combined with my yellow clamp lamp bulb that's lighting the tank. Between better lighting and time for her to stabilize, she'll get MUCH bluer with time.
I'm at it again!
I've gotten a fish that is, as far as I can tell, completely absent from the hobby. Ictalurus furcatus, the blue catfish from North America!
I've had these guys before. As a matter of fact, at this time of my posting this an older thread containing pictures of my last one was recently bumped. While these fish are related to the common channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus, I've found them to be nothing like a channel cat in personality. Blues are bold, they're active swimmers, and they're afraid of nothing. They don't hide like channels do, they swim constantly in the middle to bottom third of the tank. They seem to be much more predatory than channel cats are and mine have been equally active during the day as during the night. Their personality and behavior actually reminds me of an iridescent shark more than a channel cat.
I picked this fish up today from the local fish farm. It was seined out of the pond about 6pm central time, which is why it looks so rough. I have it in a 20 long quarantine tank right now, I want to make sure it's stable before it goes in the big tank with my expensive fish.
When I brought it in and my wife looked at it, she immediately said "I like that fish, it's name is Marilyn".
I was somewhat flabbergasted at this, as the best I can normally hope for from my wife is ambivalence. The apparent interest caught me off guard, but I still managed to ask her why she wanted to call it Marilyn.
Her reply was "it's got big red lips and pretty eyes like Marilyn Monroe, so its a girl and her name is Marilyn."
I was like
But I rolled with it.
So, without further adieu, I give you Marilyn the blue catfish:
And the setup. I've had the bio seeding for about two months in preparation for this so she's good good filtration. The goldies are in there for her to pick off at her leisure, as you can see she's pretty thin. I normally have the powerhead kicking out lots of bubbles, but I turned it off for the pictures. The heater is currently off, she came from 50* water so I want to let her get used to room temperature first. I filled her tank halfway with water from my big tank and halfway with cold sink water.
The blackwater tank water is responsible for the yellowish look to everything, combined with my yellow clamp lamp bulb that's lighting the tank. Between better lighting and time for her to stabilize, she'll get MUCH bluer with time.
