Two New Rare Catfish

[Yellowcat]

I'm learning something new every day with the pacman cats. Being concerned about feeding them and what they want, I did a little experiment last night. (When I put in the scoop of guppies yesterday I purposely included some very tiny baby ones among medium sized ones.) Anyway I put in the usual feed for the giraffe cat being a 3" nightcrawler, a defrosted cube of frozen bloodworms and a variety of large and small pellets and dispersed it all in the center of the tank. I then put in some flake food and some Hikari Vibra-Bites (very tiny) that I know guppies like, near the pacman cats, the idea being to "chum" the area so the guppies will feed on the bottom, making them vulnerable to being ambushed by the pacman cats. I then defrosted a cube of bloodworms in a tiny cup and included a live nightcrawler cut up in small pieces and introduced that near the pacman's. Much to my surprise, they reacted immediately with the lights still on so maybe I'm on to something? A while later the said fish had moved around a bit and the giraffe cat was scouring the gravel for leftovers as usual. This morning the 2 pacman cats were stacked on one another for a bit then the larger one moved a foot or so away and commenced to wiggle and shake to bury itself in to a gravel depression.
I too considered getting the smaller specimens for (obvious reasons) but with concerns about possible giraffe cat aggression I opted for the slightly larger ones as a safer choice. With your small ones, maybe live brine shrimp would be worth a try. I tried a frozen cube of brine shrimp early on but found much of them uneaten among the gravel as with the shrimp and tilapia pieces, so stopped with that. Sometimes an LFS will carry live black worms or bloodworms, bait shops often carry red worms along with large and small nightcrawlers. Then there's what Wes was feeding them. With so many choices between frozen stuff, dried and freeze dried foods available, I haven't tried 'em all. For me it's an ongoing experiment and learning curve with this new species... Happy Tuesday koltsixx!

 

[koltsixx]

Thanks Yellowcat for providing your experiences thus far. May I ask did you see if the Pac-Man's ate anything besides the guppies? I had considered live bloodworms or blackworms as well, besides the brine shrimp to hopefully induce feeding. I figured some wriggling may help entice them. As I said I loathe live but if I have to in the interim until I can wean them onto pellets so be it. As I said all my other fish all eat pellets and get live and frozen occasionally as a treat.

I also have some Wertheimeria maculata being delivered in in just a few hours(knock on wood) with the 2 five inch Pac-Man's. The Maculata are babies around 2 inches so the same size as the smaller Pac-Man's. I was going to try cohabbing them(the small Pac-Man and Maculata). I'm hoping that if the Maculata feed as vigorously as they do in Wes video, they may also help elicit a feeding response in the small Pac-Man's. In my personal humble experience having vivacious eating tankmates can often times encourage stubborn eaters; especially if they feed or compete in the same strata of water. On few occasions, again in my experience; it can cause the opposite reaction. Such as seems to be the case with my Plecos. Since the Maculata and Pac-Man's are the same size though, I'm hoping their energetic eating will inspire rather than intimidate. The Pac-Man's being ambush predators I hope frenzied movement may encourage them to snap at bloodworms perhaps?

Again thanks for the info. Yellowcat and Happy Tuesday to you too! ?

By the way Yellowcat thebiggerthebetter M Mikepugman sorry no response from Rod yet on the Fowleri. I may try calling and sending a second email.

 

[koltsixx]

Sorry, just saw this on Planetcatfish and thought it was worth posting/linking over here.

Lophiosilurus alexandri • Pseudopimelodidae • Cat-eLog (planetcatfish.com)
"Spawns over 5cm gravel in a shallow pit with the male guarding over the site. Tank size 48"x24"x24" with no other fishes. Parents were about 15-17" SL with the male the smaller. Water was treated with blackwater extract and the fishes fed well on a varied diet including fresh foods but not live. The temperature was 82F. Fry hatch after two days and once free of the yolk sac, grow about 5mm on a diet of freshly chopped live tubifex worms. A daily 15% water change routine is necessary to maintain feeding and growth. See also PFK, Septermber 2008, Benjamin Lee article."

Figured it was worth linking, etc. because it mentions the Fry where fed freshly chopped tubifex worms and since it stated they did eat fresh but not live. So perhaps frozen is the way to go? I personally got some guppies to try but my little guys still haven't eaten. I tried and am still continuing keeping the lights off just incase that helps. I also have some frozen bloodworms I picked up but will try that later when I try to feed the Maculata, which arrived healthy along with the 2 bigger Pac-Man's. Thank you again Wes!

I also reached out to Rod/Predatory Fins via phone to ask about the Fowleri. They said they would try to get some pics for me and if they do I will do my best to share here.

 

[Yellowcat]

Glad to see you got the other pacman cats and W. maculata's too! No further news about my pacman's feeding, in my last post I mentioned getting a reaction from both of them when I put in frozen bloodworms and cut pieces of nightcrawlers near them, (room daylight) not sure which item they reacted to. I've had 2 W. maculata for 9 months now. They arrived @ 2 1/2", as of now they are about 3 1/2". I chose to buy them based on photo's of adult specimens, real stunners of course. Mine still retain juvenile markings but the patterns are changing slightly but it possibly may take years to reflect the adult spotting. I got mine from Wetspot Fish along with a pair of African mudfish that they share a 50G tank with. I didn't know that Wes had W. maculata, I only go by infrequent lists he posts on here in the Vendors Forum but I know he does a lot on social media, something I don't do.. My W. maculata's are very reclusive, never leaving the driftwood during the day even when food is offered then. They and the mudfish (AKA hingemouth) only come out to feed in total darkness but they like a variety of Hikari pellets, frozen brine shrimp and bloodworms. It should prove interesting to have pacman's and maculata's sharing a tank as their nocturnal/diurnal and feeding behaviors in my case, being markedly quite different so far...

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Just spoke with Mike the pugman on the phone. He bought one of the alleged fowleri. He plans to post about it later today with pics.

Kirk, sorry about muddying up your thread on the pacmans. I wanted to split off the topic but many posts contain the info on both the pacman's and Rod's alleged fowleri, making it unsplittable.

Now you are throwing maculata and african bush fish in there too hahha..... I guess it's all good anyway...

 

[koltsixx]

Kirk, sorry about muddying up your thread on the pacmans. I wanted to split off the topic but many posts contain the info on both the pacman's and Rod's alleged fowleri, making it unsplittable.

My apologies Yellowcat for derailing or muddying up your thread. I thought we had stayed on the original topic which I believed was about several of your fish, mostly about catfish with the stars being the Pac-Man's. And the conversation had grown organically. Based on thebiggerthebetter post though I guess I am in error and apologize. I guess I will in the future try to keep my own personal experiences more focused in threads. I thought a consolidation of experiences would be best, making threads more informational and therefore more useful. But I guess I went too far. I will try to reevaluate my posting process and I guess move such things like this to PM's. I enjoyed talking about your experiences and sharing mine back and was looking forward to touching base more on your experiences with your Rhinodoras, Batroglanis, Maculata and Apurensis/Fowleri but I will digress in the hopes of not furthering the muddying. Again my apologies.

 

[Yellowcat]

Hey no apologies needed! I truly enjoy when others respond and provide input to the original post as well as bringing up related fish/topics in the process as the thread evolves and becomes more interesting as a result! I too, can easily go off on tangents from my own posts by bringing up subjects I think might be relevant to the ensuing discussion that might be helpful to others. I think any discussion about a given species would be incomplete without it's relationships with other tank mates and similar species as well. I'm so very pleased and humbled that anyone may find my posts interesting enough to read them, much less respond with their knowledge and experience to add to the topic too! In this case I don't feel that anyone here has derailed this thread in any way at all and I welcome anyone to to continue to muddy things up! No worries, it's all good! Thanks y'all...

 

[Fishman Dave]

I’m derailing again but posting all of this information in private messages helps no one.
In my opinion you have not derailed it, the op has valid information on the question and now has information on other species they own which they can set up a separate thread for if they want and copy your feedback into.
Some like to have threads limited to one subject only, some like to have no chit chat, some like to create threads not about fish. Personally I like to learn as much as I can about any fish I own or may own at some point, so thank you all for every post above!

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Kolt, I wasn't singling you out at all. Sorry, my dear friend. Many contributed. But as Kirk says and as I had thought he'd say, it's all good. I've enjoyed reading everything you posted. As always.

 

[Kieraivingston]

damn