Whiptail Catfish

[m1lky12]

Just looking for advice and opinions on whiptail catfish and if anyones kept them before? Will be looking to add them to either a 100 liter or 175 liter tank after I've restocked and rescaped. I've read that they prefer to be in small groups of 3 or so? So if anyone could shed some light on that it would be most appreciated as to whether it's just a general preference or just if your looking to breed? Any other info or advice would be cool.

Thanks in advance.

 

[This Old Spouse]

What kind of substrate do you have?

 

[phantomlink]

I bought 4 large ones about 5-6 inches long and put them in my 75 gallon/283liter, one of them died out of nowhere a few weeks later though.  They're nice fish, really slow though they cant be in a tank with fast fish who will eat all the food.  They do alot of their swimming at night and love to bury themselves in the sand, sometimes I can barely see the fish or they just hang ontop of a plant and always look dead.  They must have sand gravel will not work properly for their burying habits.
 
I see alot of babies around 1 inch or so my only experience is with older ones I dont know how younger ones act.

 

[m1lky12]

What kind of substrate do you have?

I'll be using sand substrate

I bought 4 large ones about 5-6 inches long and put them in my 75 gallon/283liter, one of them died out of nowhere a few weeks later though.  They're nice fish, really slow though they cant be in a tank with fast fish who will eat all the food.  They do alot of their swimming at night and love to bury themselves in the sand, sometimes I can barely see the fish or they just hang ontop of a plant and always look dead.  They must have sand gravel will not work properly for their burying habits.
 
I see alot of babies around 1 inch or so my only experience is with older ones I dont know how younger ones act.

Thanks for the reply! Yeah I'll be using sand substrate so that won't be a problem, and in all fairness I haven't seen much of them in fish stores, one LFS had a tank of them but that's as far as I can remember. I know 'whiptail catfish' is more a blanket term for dozens of fish but the ones I'm really after are the Royal Whiptail or 'Sturisoma panamense' even now I'm not sure as alot of the same pictures are coming up under different names!

 

[phantomlink]

Heres a picture of when I bought them, cant find my camera atm
 
 





http/www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152289605125045&l=ee97eaa203
 

 

[m1lky12]

 
Heres a picture of when I bought them, cant find my camera atm

 
 
http/www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152289605125045&l=ee97eaa203
 

Ahh Banjo Catfish! I love these guys! Had one for a while until a chunk of it's tail went missing and I guess got infected and worked it's way up it's body, unfortunately it went missing, couldn't find it anywhere. Been looking everywhere for another one but don't come around too often, shame because it was my favorite fish while I had it.

Yeah mine just chilled out in and around my plants, rarely buried itself though, read somewhere that younger ones used plants to hide until they were a bit older then they would bury themselves.

 

[phantomlink]

Ya I wasn't sure what they really were because the lable said "Jumbo Banjo Whiptail Catfish" when I bought them, I still dont really know if theres a difference between banjo and whiptail, I know the whiptails I see at the store are tan while these guys are black

 

[m1lky12]

Yeah I know Whiptails and Twig catfish get sort of an umbrella name in fish shops and I know there's a few types of Banjos cats which are all labelled the same when I've seen them, guess some shops overlap the three of them! Jumbo Banjo Whiptail Catfish seems to have a little of everything though!

 

[phantomlink]

Ya, later on I learned when they sell fish that are full grown adults, or pretty large they use "jumbo", the next time I went in I saw a tank of jumbo harlequin rasbora and they were pretty big