Spotted Climbing Perch

y2blade

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I have never seen this before

spotted them in my LFS on Saturday while out getting ideas for stocking my 48" (56Imperial Gal) tank...they were about 1" long and very pretty to look at and watch for a while, the shop assistant said they grow to about 6" and are very peaceful and get on ok with other fish but not small ones (ie Neons)

anyone here know about them please?
they are superb looking fish
 
The info sounds spot on, they can get up to about 8" but 6" is a lot more common. They can be fairly timid and prefer quite a bit of cover, a dim lit tank and some floating plants. If the tanks big enough they do well in groups but if not 1 will be fine with anything to big to fit in its mouth. Might be a bit hard to get onto dry foods but after a while should take them.
 
I just put 3 of these in my tank yesterday. They seem to be ok at the moment, they just lurk around in the plants waiting to feed.

I have a few rams, corys and larger tetras in there with them and they dont seem to have any interest in them at all.
 
Ctenopoma acutirostre are great fish, very hardy and beautifully marked "oddballs", who are great community fish in a peaceful setup providing tankmates are not torpedo-shaped and less than 6cm when the Bushfish are fully grown at ~14cm. I have four in a Rio240 (albeit I think I discovered that one of my original babies is actually a Ctenopoma accellatum/"Zulu Perch" in the last week, only a patch near its tail is boldly black while the rest of the body is like a washed-out C. acutirostre), with a few other oddball species (African Butterfly Fish; Golden Wonder Killifish; Upside Down Catfish). My group heave really come out of shell in the Rio240, using all levels of the tank, while in my 560l they rarely left the lower levels, no doubt down to the active and boisterous Barilius group down there.

Some online profiles write of them being hard to move off live food, just like African Butterfly Fish. However, both types readily eat Tetra Prima; Hikari Cichlid Gold (baby) floating pellets; but go positively bonkers for floating sticks of Tetra Doromin/Cichlid XL that have been broken into ~3mm sections. As a treat, mine get some defrosted bloodworm at least twice a week.


They love sturdy, tall plants to lurk in, where they can imitate leaves and look out for unsuspecting live lunch as they would do in the wild. Just like puffers, a well planted tank with intrestingly shaped bogwood and other furniture helps satisfy their inquisitive side. Providing the tank has calm areas too, I've found them to enjoy current surfing in pretty brisk water flow.

Good luck with your group(s)!:good:
 

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