Unknown Fish

[Ellie325]

I bought an established tank off someone about a month ago and had identified all the fish in it. However, today i moved one of the rocks in the aquarium and another fish apeared. This fish has surrvived being trapped under a rock for at least a month.

I can't have searched many web sites trying to find out what it is, but haven't found anything similar. I have been looking at catfish because I presumed that it was one.

Here is the best picture I can get.



This one shows the whiskers better which are nearly the length of its body.

 

[Colin_T]

Mystus micracanthus

 

[prankster705]

Mystus bimaculatus?

 

[Davo86]

Mystus bimaculatus?

Agreed

 

[Ellie325]

Thanks! I have a red finned shark in its tank, is the shark likely to attack it?

 

[Davo86]

Thanks! I have a red finned shark in its tank, is the shark likely to attack it?

should be ok, but it is a possibility if the tank isn't big enough, i.e. at least 50G

 

[Ellie325]

The tank I was given was no where near that size. How big a tank does the catfish need on its own?

 

[Ficious]

Its looks ok now...just consider that it will get large.

I forgot the common name but I see them at petsmart

 

[Davo86]

Its looks ok now...just consider that it will get large.

I forgot the common name but I see them at petsmart

The catfish remain fairly small, only usually getting to a few inches in size.
The 50G part was for the shark, In anything smaller than this they become much more aggressive than normal

 

[Ellie325]

I have another question about the catfish. Since it has been free in the tank 2 of my guppies have lost their tails. I have put the catfish in a breeding net and no more guppies have been attacked. Are these catfish aggressive? Or should I be looking at another suspect?

 

[Colin_T]

What else is in the tank?

The catfish aren't normally agro but are nocturnal so they could be coming out at night and nipping the guppy's tails. You could try feeding them after lights out and see if the guppies still get chomped.

 

[Ellie325]

The other things in the tank that it could be are angel fish, gouramis, the red finned shark mentioned before or tetras. The things that made me think it was the catfish was the fact that I haven't had any problems with tail loss before the catfish was freed. The other thing being that rather than the tails being nibbled it looked like a huge bite had been taken right down to the base, leaving two parts above and below the bite the full length. If it was tetras or angels I thought it would look more even. There is literally a huge bite shaped chunk missing!

 

[Colin_T]

sharks, gouramis and big angels might do that but if they were fine before the catfish was added, then I would suspect the catfish.