Rift Lake Catfish

[ItsDubC]

Anyone know if there are any other synodontis species endemic to Lake Tanganyika other than multipunctatus and petricola?

Also, I understand full-sized petricolas are much smaller than full-sized multipunctatus (multipunctati? LoL).  How big do petricolas get?  I'm thinkin of gettin 1 or 2 (altho I know they should be kept in larger groups) for my 20L for "groundskeeping."

[Mzungu]

Re: Rift Lake Catfish

I remember wondering about this too, about a year ago, when I was thinking about my sometime-in-the-far-away-future Lake Victoria tank. I also remember not finding that many that wouldn't become huge! (At the fish store, we had one synodontis that was at least 10", huge for a 20L!) Lake Victoria really doesn't have too many catfish, but from what I've seen, Tanganyika has quite a few? But, since you got me all interested again  :)  I found a page on planet catfish that might be of some help, although you're probably going to have your best bet with the petricolas or multipunctati ( ) in the availability sense.

http://www.planetcatfish.com/shanesworld/shanesworld.php?article_id=95

I don't know the proper way to put a link in a post, so I hope that's okay. Anyways, I thought the article was kind of interesting, hope it helps.

[ItsDubC]

Re: Rift Lake Catfish

Very informative!  I never even knew about the Lophiobagrus cats.  I imagine those are pretty hard to come by, but who knows?  

With regards to Lake Victorian catfish, it seems that the nile perch problem u were talkin bout b4 has severely crippled the native catfish population in that lake.  This article abstract names off quite a few Lake Victorian catfish but relates them to the nile perch as the cause for their demise.   :(

ARTICLE

[geoff_tropheus]

Re: Rift Lake Catfish

Petricola only get to about 4"

Mulitpactus gets like 6-8 and is also a cuckoo spawner.  There are actually several species of syno and there are also another catfish called a girrafe cat.

http://www.absolutelyfish.com/PicturesFresh/GiraffeCat.JPG

Some of the syno cats have round spots, small spots, big spots, long fins, swim upside down etc..

http://www.sci.fi/~vmkiili/akvaario/pics/syno.jpg

If your interested in seeing the giraffe cat about 6-10 other syno cats, I know that Alex at Ultimate Fish has several to choose from.

http://www.azgardens.com/images/Synodontis-Eupteris.gif

This was a weird photo

http://research.yale.edu/peabody/CICHLID/AB/biting_syno_spine.jpg

[ItsDubC]

Re: Rift Lake Catfish

8O  U'll be happy to know I will NOT be doing that to my new syno.  Mike would kill me  

[Mzungu]

Re: Rift Lake Catfish

So you got one?! Which kind?

[ItsDubC]

Re: Rift Lake Catfish

Got me a small multipunctatus "Burundi"!  Gorgeous fish.  By the time it grows up, I'll definitely have a bigger tank for it (and some friends)   8)  It's already doing a great job cleaning my (your   ) tank, but any activity is done when the lights go off.