Leopard Ctenopoma
- Thread starter KkAaNnEe
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DiscoFace
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I've had one for about 3 months now. AWESOME looking fish! Mine eats floating cichlid pellets (Hikari Cichlid Gold) and so far has been playing nice with everybody in the tank. Mine grew pretty quick IMO. Went from 1 inch to 3 1/2-4 inches in a matter of months. Seems to have stopped growing, or at least slowed down lately though. What other kind of info are you looking to get? I'm still learning some myself so I'll answer any questions the best I can.
KkAaNnEe
Apistogramma Macmasteri
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Wow, thought I would be waiting days! Cheers
Basically I see them everytime i go in my LFS but only just taken an interest in them, the ones in my LFS are stunning littke things.
I heard they grow fast, they are about 1-2 inches in my LFS.
Tankmates??? Just basic, i heard they eat small fish
Basically I see them everytime i go in my LFS but only just taken an interest in them, the ones in my LFS are stunning littke things.
I heard they grow fast, they are about 1-2 inches in my LFS.
Tankmates??? Just basic, i heard they eat small fish
N0body Of The Goat
Oddball and African riverine fish keeper
I have a group of four, although recently I have swayed to thinking one of them is a Ctenopoma occellatum ("Zulu Perch" or "Bullseye Ctenopoma"), as the patterning is significantly fainter on its sides (with the exception of the "bullseye" near its caudal fin) and it lacks the orange tint to the pectoral fins. Three of them were bought as babies last summer, measuring ~2cm long, which are now ~8cm. The fourth was bought as a late juvenile ~12cm from the fish shop on my delivery round for a bargain price last December, after someone changed their stocking to small fish. With my original three still being quite small at the time, thankfully the introduction of a new member of the gang went pretty well (the size difference probably helped somewhat, he dwarfed the ~6cm babies at the time!).
They now live in my Rio240 and the transformation in their confidence has been amazing over the past couple of months, compared to how they were in the 560l tank in the garage. The group now roams the whole tank (usually alone, but sometimes as a gang) and will interact with me when I look at the tank, whereas they only ever seemed to use the lower levels in the 560l (much less interaction with me too), which I now think is at least partially down to the relatively hyperactive Barilius I have in the larger tank. They share the Rio240 with fish that are big enough not to be tempting snacks, which are usually quite sedatory...
African Butterfly Fish
Golden Wonder Killifish
Upside Down Catfish
Pyjama Synodontis
Brochis
Definitely not to be trusted with small torpedo-shaped tankmates, as ~14cm aquaria adults they will be a threat to most streamlined fish less than 7cm. "Mattlee" on the forum experienced a sad yet shocking experience with a young Ctenopoma within the last year, where one of his tried to swallow an Oto almost as long as itself, which locked out its pectoral fins just inside the bushfish's mouth and he sadly lost both fish.
Like a fair few fish in the hobby, two is a bad number... You either want a singleton, or group of 3+, so that any bullying is better spread within the group. The chasing is my biggest concern of having the four in the 4-foot tank compared to my 5-foot, but thankfully it rarely lasts more than a second or two, I am temted to move them back to the bigger tank long term once I have moved on the Barilius and Redline Torpedo Barbs.
I've not had any problems feeding dried food to my ones, their favourite is small pieces of Doromin/Cichlid XL, but they readily eat Tetra Prima and Hikari Cichlid Gold pellets too, sometimes even eating the Hikari mini algae discs I drop in there for the catfish!
Only other thing I can think on mentioning is tank layout, areas of tall bushy plants and bogwood stacks (with hidey holes) go down well with these fish. Besides creating a more intresting layout for them to explore (just like some puffers) and creating lots of line-of-sight barriers to reduce conspecific aggression, it allows them to act out their natural behavior of the wild where they lie dormant looking like a leaf to pounce on unsuspecting small prey that swim past. My ones like to do the odd bit of "current surfing" at the back of my tank, but equally spend time cruising in the calmer front section.
They now live in my Rio240 and the transformation in their confidence has been amazing over the past couple of months, compared to how they were in the 560l tank in the garage. The group now roams the whole tank (usually alone, but sometimes as a gang) and will interact with me when I look at the tank, whereas they only ever seemed to use the lower levels in the 560l (much less interaction with me too), which I now think is at least partially down to the relatively hyperactive Barilius I have in the larger tank. They share the Rio240 with fish that are big enough not to be tempting snacks, which are usually quite sedatory...
African Butterfly Fish
Golden Wonder Killifish
Upside Down Catfish
Pyjama Synodontis
Brochis
Definitely not to be trusted with small torpedo-shaped tankmates, as ~14cm aquaria adults they will be a threat to most streamlined fish less than 7cm. "Mattlee" on the forum experienced a sad yet shocking experience with a young Ctenopoma within the last year, where one of his tried to swallow an Oto almost as long as itself, which locked out its pectoral fins just inside the bushfish's mouth and he sadly lost both fish.
Like a fair few fish in the hobby, two is a bad number... You either want a singleton, or group of 3+, so that any bullying is better spread within the group. The chasing is my biggest concern of having the four in the 4-foot tank compared to my 5-foot, but thankfully it rarely lasts more than a second or two, I am temted to move them back to the bigger tank long term once I have moved on the Barilius and Redline Torpedo Barbs.
I've not had any problems feeding dried food to my ones, their favourite is small pieces of Doromin/Cichlid XL, but they readily eat Tetra Prima and Hikari Cichlid Gold pellets too, sometimes even eating the Hikari mini algae discs I drop in there for the catfish!
Only other thing I can think on mentioning is tank layout, areas of tall bushy plants and bogwood stacks (with hidey holes) go down well with these fish. Besides creating a more intresting layout for them to explore (just like some puffers) and creating lots of line-of-sight barriers to reduce conspecific aggression, it allows them to act out their natural behavior of the wild where they lie dormant looking like a leaf to pounce on unsuspecting small prey that swim past. My ones like to do the odd bit of "current surfing" at the back of my tank, but equally spend time cruising in the calmer front section.
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