Help With Catfish I.d Please

[gcparks2000]

What catfish is this

 

[Blubble37]

a beautiful one!

tbh, i dont know really.

 

[gavinjayanand]

I think it's the upside-down catfish, Synodontis nigriventris. Looks beautiful! Would make an extremely interesting addition to the aquarium! Keep a few and watch them school, it's a lovely sight.

 

[gcparks2000]

lfs said they was was angel catfish but didnt look like them to b honest and do u know if some pictus catfish would be ok in the same tank

 

[gcparks2000]

I think it's the upside-down catfish, Synodontis nigriventris. Looks beautiful! Would make an extremely interesting addition to the aquarium! Keep a few and watch them school, it's a lovely sight.

lfs said they was was angel catfish but didnt look like them to b honest and do u know if some pictus catfish would be ok in the same tank

 

[england]

I was thinking along the Synodontis lines, Multipunctatus

 

[Fella]

That is likely to be either synodontis angelicus or a hybrid.

 

[trampas]

Hi as Nelly said it`s a Synodontis Multipunctatus , not an Angelicus as they have a beautiful blue body with pale yellow spot`s as a juvenile .

 

[gcparks2000]

Hi as Nelly said it`s a Synodontis Multipunctatus , not an Angelicus as they have a beautiful blue body with pale yellow spot`s as a juvenile .

would they be ok in same tank as pictus catfish

 

[kizno1]

I dont think its a Multipunctatus, it has a clear tail with spots rather than a black tail with a white/clear trim like Multi's do. To me it looks like a catfish that i had ages ago which i was never quite sure what it was but it got ID on planet catfish as being a Synodontis velifer

 

[Blubble37]

I dont think its a Multipunctatus, it has a clear tail with spots rather than a black tail with a white/clear trim like Multi's do. To me it looks like a catfish that i had ages ago which i was never quite sure what it was but it got ID on planet catfish as being a Synodontis velifer

to me it looks more like the one on the right in yellow rather than the red one tbh

 

[MartinS]

Sorry to say but it's a definite hybrid

 

[trampas]

Unfortunately the word hybrid has now become a " get out of jail free card " for the unidentified , however as people who keep fish over a period of year`s and a lot of I.D. book`s will attest a juvenile is not alway`s what an adult look`s like , it also doesn`t change over night but undergo`s a constant transition to it`s adult stage so there will alway`s be variation`s between fish of the same species but different age which only add`s to the already difficult problem of identification , it would alway`s be helpful to ask the LFS owner where the import shipment came from as country and region will alway`s be a great help in identification . I use the example of the Synodontis Angelicus again which when I first encountered it in the late 70`s it was rare and expensive ( £120 + ) so obviously breeding was desireable but adult`s were not being found , in the late 80`s I was lead to believe this was because the adult`s were a totally dissimilar dull brown having lost their beautiful bright blue and yellow colours . So I urge all identifier`s not to dismiss as cross bred too readily and fish keeper`s with unidentified`s to keep note`s on size age and colour change`s or better still take and keep regular photo`s with date`s for the benifit of other fish keeper`s and the hobby as a whole .
Sorry to go on but there are some aspects of this hobby that I have alway`s been fanatically passionate about and identification is one of them .

 

[MartinS]

Whilst I hear what you are saying, the fish above is a well known hybrid (check out planet catfish for all the known hybrid synos out there). Sadly less and less real species are seen these days as shops generally (but not always!) buy in a tank of a fish listed as 'synodontis species', and just sell them as listed, irrespective of their parentage. The fish above is most likely a juvenile Synodontis sp. hybrid(1).
Unless you get to see livestock shipped from Africa, you are unlikely to see much other than the few specied that have been bred commercially, but more often than not, these are just hybrids. The process to make hybrids involves a female being stripped of eggs by hand (leading to its death). I wish there was a way to stop the hybrid production, but sadly, it's only going to get worse.

 

[trampas]

I agree with you that hybridisation is a sad sad way to go as along with the death of the original female the offspring are invariably infertile so the pleasure of captivity breeding is removed from the hobbist .
However I still maintain that photographic recording of fish maturing ( especially now it is so simple with digital camera`s and mobile phone camera`s technology ) is a vital and extreemly helpful part of the hobby going forward .
In my younger day`s I was responsible for more than 150 South American import shipment`s ( min 50 box`s each shipment ) which was part of a syndicate employing locals to catch and ship , so we knew the parts of the river`s etc where the fish came from , all new specimin`s were photographed and the picture`s and info were sent to two Dutch professor`s who worked for the British Natural History Museum ( along with sad to say the preserved body`s of any specimin`s that didn`t survive ) who were cataloging and writing a report on S.A. fish , I like to think this went a long way to help the hobby to the point it is now , although I would no longer advocate the capture and shipment of fish from their natural habitat , much rather they came from responsible fish farm`s .
As I said before identification is a passion for me and even hybred`s should be identified ( named not numbered ) so we all know what we are buying and what to expect from and for them , " hybred spec`s " is not good enough anymore these day`s