Raphael Cat breeding?

[imponfire]

So today my husband and I noticed a little spotted Raphael in our tank. We have had a STRIPED Raphael for a bit over a year ago that we got from a coworker's tank that passed away. There was no other Raphael in that tank.

We have several cichlids, a rope fish and large pleco in with her. I tried finding breeding information on them, however since they are extremely rare to have bread in captivity I could not find anything other that they are spawning fish that must be caught in the wild to get for your tank.

At first we seriously thought the pleco and striped bred but now I'm really second guessing that. However I really have no other plausible possibilities in my thoughts!

Thoughts??

 

[Demeter32]

Impossible, someone must of bought the spotted and placed it in the tank.

 

[imponfire]

Impossible, someone must of bought the spotted and placed it in the tank.

Haha! Right? We hardly ever see the striped because of the nocturnal behaviors. (S)he mostly stays in a log where a pair of my cichlids breed left and right. The spotted emerged for the first time (that we have seen) last night and we were both in shock. After researching, I told my husband "well, apparently we have a million dollar fish" haha

 

[Byron]

Somehow the fish was introduced to your tank, unless it is something else...tiny fry of most fish can be very difficult to identify.

 

[imponfire]

So, is there a professional person or organization I could contact about asking questions?

I'm really curious because there is 0 possibility someone in my family just added this guy, and he couldn't have hitchhiked into my tank unless he was attached to the other rafael already.... which... would still mean the rafael bred in captivity.

 

[Demeter32]

Can we see a few pictures of the catfish? I still think it is highly unlikely that the catfish came from the previous one. As far as I know, there are no species of fish that can reproduce w/o spawning with another fish.

There is a slight possibility that it might of hitch hichhicked on a plant or piece of driftwood. I've seen where someone got a free pygmy corydora with a bundle of plants, same for danios in which case eggs were attached to the plants upon arrival.

 

[imponfire]

so, long story short:
coworker died. his dad asked if anyone would take his fish. got there and the tank was dee-sgust-ing. 80% green and once we fished the cichlids out we started draining the tank that left at least 1-2" of sludge and sand. When we started scooping the sand out (this was a 90 gal tank we had to carry down stairs so we wanted EVERYTHING out) the striped raphael started flopping around. We both thought it was a pretty cool looking fish (never seen one) so he got scooped out, rinsed off and thrown into his own bag. Brought them home and put them in MY existing 55gal pictured. So, about 8 cichlids including the blood parrot and the raphael were added to my tank that had 2 cichlids, the oscar, rope fish and the pleco (everyone was half their current size haha). The rocks, gravel and logs are all fake and were already in the tank. The only thing added was the wave makers, but they came from that guy's salt water tank.

It has now been almost 2 years since that happened and at one point several cichlids started dying so we stripped the tank, washed all rocks/logs and siphoned the gravel. The only thing having babies in there was the convict cichlids and they were basically having a new group every month in the log that the raphael hides in. They got sucked up pretty regularly, however last week the male decided he wanted to fly and popped out of the top while we were at work.

So, this is the tank, the striped, the spotted and the pleco.
I'm not big on genetics, but I'm guessing even though they're both catfish, the pleco/raphael thing would definitely be a no-go, right?

 

[imponfire]

The striped takes up at least half of that log, it's twice the size of the spotted. If that matters. And when we got it, it was smaller than the spotted is now.

 

[Demeter32]

That spotted rapheal looks to be a good size/age so he's probably a few years old already. So the log came with the 90gal? If so then my theory is this:

The spotted rapheal was hiding in the log the entire time between moving the tank to your house. They can live a surprising time outside of the water so long as they stay wet. He could also have been hiding in the sand/gravel if you happened to reuse it. If this were the case, I'm surprised you never heard it making the grunting noise they like to make when taken out of the water. A small rapheal could of gone unnoticed for a while. It might very well of been hiding in one of the crevices inside the log 2 years ago.

It is impossible that the pleco and striped rapheal spawned to create a spotted rapheal.

 

[fluttermoth]

I'm not big on genetics, but I'm guessing even though they're both catfish, the pleco/raphael thing would definitely be a no-go, right?

I am 'big on genetics', and you're guessing right

'Catfish' is not a biological term; to ichthyologists it's meaningless. It's just a shorthand that people use to mean 'a fish that lives on the bottom and has barbels'. Even 'plec' is an almost meaningless term; there are literally hundreds of species of 'plec', some only an inch or two long, fully grown, to monsters that grow to over four feet.

You'll find that most serious fishkeepers hate the terms 'plec', 'catfish', 'tetra', 'barb' etc. They're just not descriptive or accurate enough.

To hybridise, the two fish have to be in very, very closely related species. Plecs and raphael catfish aren't even in the same family. Them mating and producing fry absolutely cannot happen; it would be like a dog and a cat mating and having babies.

In my mind there's no doubt that the spotted fish, as Demeter says, was hidden in the decor somewhere. These fish are very, very good at hiding and jamming themselves in small spaces.

I've had a spotted and striped raphael myself, for over 15 years, and I very rarely see the spotted. I've also had to take them out of the water on odd occasions (to move them from their old tank to their new big one, for example) and they don't always croak!

 

[SeanTrollope]

that is one cool story

 

[imponfire]

That spotted rapheal looks to be a good size/age so he's probably a few years old already. So the log came with the 90gal? If so then my theory is this:

The spotted rapheal was hiding in the log the entire time between moving the tank to your house. They can live a surprising time outside of the water so long as they stay wet. He could also have been hiding in the sand/gravel if you happened to reuse it. If this were the case, I'm surprised you never heard it making the grunting noise they like to make when taken out of the water. A small rapheal could of gone unnoticed for a while. It might very well of been hiding in one of the crevices inside the log 2 years ago.

It is impossible that the pleco and striped rapheal spawned to create a spotted rapheal.

No, nothing came from the 90 gal tank except the fish. At this point the only thing I can guess is that when we were initially bagging fish that maybe some of the 'floating dirt' that we bagged the fish in had a fry in it. STILL that means SOMETHING bred with SOMETHING in HIS tank, which from what I understand is still relatively rare. ....but maybe all that gunk they were living in made a good breeding ground? haha and there was only the striped in there (alive) but who knows what could have happened to the other mate I suppose? Like I said, the tank was gross and the shelving wasn't any better.. and the floor around it was full of misc fish carcasses from jumpers.

I didn't mean to seem rude, I am just really surprised by this mysterious new fish that doesnt breed in captivity and was really interested in some more info.

 

[fluttermoth]

You didn't come across as rude; a bit confused, maybe, and I don't blame you for that

It's certainly true that some fish allegedly 'never bred in captivity' certainly have. Over the years here we've seen a few; we had someone once who'd bred common plecs, and we've seen the very rare spawn of some of the 'impossible' loaches (weathers and clowns, although I don't believe the clown spawn hatched, IIRC) and kuhlis used to be considered impossible, but are bred now, and I read about red tailed black sharks some years ago, in TFH I think.

We were just discounting the possibility of hybrids in this case, although hybridising is quite common in fish as a group.

 

[imponfire]

I am 'big on genetics', and you're guessing right

'Catfish' is not a biological term; to ichthyologists it's meaningless. It's just a shorthand that people use to mean 'a fish that lives on the bottom and has barbels'. Even 'plec' is an almost meaningless term; there are literally hundreds of species of 'plec', some only an inch or two long, fully grown, to monsters that grow to over four feet.

You'll find that most serious fishkeepers hate the terms 'plec', 'catfish', 'tetra', 'barb' etc. They're just not descriptive or accurate enough.

To hybridise, the two fish have to be in very, very closely related species. Plecs and raphael catfish aren't even in the same family. Them mating and producing fry absolutely cannot happen; it would be like a dog and a cat mating and having babies.

In my mind there's no doubt that the spotted fish, as Demeter says, was hidden in the decor somewhere. These fish are very, very good at hiding and jamming themselves in small spaces.

I've had a spotted and striped raphael myself, for over 15 years, and I very rarely see the spotted. I've also had to take them out of the water on odd occasions (to move them from their old tank to their new big one, for example) and they don't always croak!

Thank you for that! I know fish are WAY more extensive than what they are grouped as, but I wasn't sure if it was a difference of horse and donkey or dog and cat (if that makes sense). Like I know blood parrots, oscars and dempsey's are all "cichlids" but I'll never get a blood oscar.

Considering nobody noticed him for almost 2 years and even looking directly into their log (they are both in there in the picture with the striped) you can't see it so yeah, they're more than awesome in their sneak levels! ha Like I said it had to of been included in one of the transfer bags, which is still pretty cool imo. lol

But thank you again, that was really what I was looking for. In all of my fish ownership I have had a lot of people say 'that cant happen' or 'they can't live together' and its all worked out just fine for me. So I was looking for actual black/white information on the situation.

 

[Demeter32]

I didn't mean to seem rude, I am just really surprised by this mysterious new fish that doesnt breed in captivity and was really interested in some more info.

I didn't take that as rude. I've seen rude, I've been told to kill my cross breed africans (profile pic) and man did I flip a lid.