building a "big" Potamotrygon/SA Catfishes tank

[OlePaulsen]

Sweet potatoes are a favorite for my Panaque.
I also put together a mix for them containing: potato, sweet potato, peas, beans of different kinds, plecochips, garlic, vitamins, carrot and paprika. mixed it also sink to the bottom, making it easy accessible for the Panaque. I found them quite shy to go up for food.

[ElTofi]

3 wonderfull standard leo's :

the male (box width is 1 foot)


close up of the male's head :


and the two (smaller) females :


And a short video, shot right after the acclimatation, just to catch the size difference between the male (bigger for the moment) and the 2 females. Remember they are under 4 feet water column (seems so deep and far away) :

I'm like a child before Christmas tree... :stingray::cool-1::cheers:

[NielsV]

Beautiful fish and rays!

[OlePaulsen]

Congratulation with your new ones !

[MatsP]

Very nice rays there...

--
Mats

[plecomanpat]

impressive

[rövarprinsen]

A friend of mine breads them here in sweden. I went over to his house the other night and they are flippin fantastic but you need a big tank like yours to keep them. I think his big female is 45-50 cm. One day when i live in a house not an apartment i will build one to...

[ElTofi]

the females leopoldi should grow till 70-80 cm diameter in time...

here's a picture I borrowed to Mr Arnaud Filleul :



quite impressive indeed...

[nvcichlids]

the females leopoldi should grow till 70-80 cm diameter in time...

here's a picture I borrowed to Mr Arnaud Filleul :



quite impressive indeed...

I did a double take on that picture from my tablet.. I thought it looked deformed or maybe like a super fat pleco .

Nice tank and rays, I have always wanted to do rays, just don't have the indoor pond yet.

[ElTofi]

[ElTofi]

when proceeding to waterchanges and vaccum the bottom of the tank, I had the opportunity to catch this Panaque L191... It's not the biggest, it's not the smaller neither... just in the size average

enjoy !
just remember in 2011 September, they were around 14 cm...



Now, they reached 20 cm ! After "only" 6-7 months





it begins to grow... I'm really looking forward to see those little guys in a few years...

[sidguppy]

sure these are L191?

they look like the Tocantins variety of Panaque armbrusteri to me; L027....

Panaque cf_armbrusteri`tocantins`

[ElTofi]

Always a good question about the ID...

but considering the fact they were imported from 2 different shops (November 2010, March 2011), under the same ID (L191), that they had the same coloration and behaviour from pups till now, and that the area of collect matches the datas on L191, I'm pretty sure they are L191...

look at these pictures, from November 2010 till now... and tell me what you think...

2010, November, 1st batch :



2011, September :



2012, April :



Anyway, they are Panaque... for sure... and probably L191, from my point of view... but I'm still open to any other idea, as long as it is constructive and argumented...

[MatsP]

I'd say they are L191 - 'Broken lines', and 'dull eyes' both match the typical for these fish.

--
Mats

[ElTofi]

I'd add, based on the "sp Tocantins" pictures, here on Planet, that mine are much more "higher" in body shape... maybe a question of age ?

[megacat]

Beautiful set up and fish

The panaque look like P. Titan

[ElTofi]

I agree it looks similar BUT... (there's always a but)...

Mine are more "green", high body shaped, and "broken lines" at this stage, than a Panaque titan...

but I assume that nothing looks more like a mature Panaque, than another mature Panaque, despite a different ID...

I'll keep shooting at regular intervals, just to see how they evolve...

[matthewfaulkner]

Your tank and fish make me so envious! Is it even correct to call it a 'tank'?

The growth you've managed with your L191 is brilliant. I guess this is as close to replicating their natural growth patterns as anyone could achieve. Do you feed them anything specifically? Or do they graze naturally?

As for their ID, I think they are L191, although I think you could argue they were P. titan/L418 as well, either way they are a very similar fish. I'm confident they aren't

Panaque cf_armbrusteri`tocantins`

as they are essentially brown in colour. But I'm very suspicious of 3 of the images in the Cat-eLog as they look almost identical to those of juvenile

Panaque sp(l191)

. Can we check that they aren't placed incorrectly?

This is a picture of my fish thathat I believe to be P. 'tocantins'.

[megacat]

Are the pictures of the fish in hand and in the bucket both different fish?

The pictures show a fish that looks identical to my P. Titan from the patern and colour. The body shape of 191 and 418 both are almost identical if not the same.

I'll be watching to see them evolve

They're very nice panaque

[ElTofi]

@MegaCat,

I can't be sure this was the same fish on September's picture and in April's one... but it's the same group of fishes, placed in the same tank, from the same batch of buying, yes... and the 6 of them (let's call them L191, in opposition of the 4 Panaque schaeferi in the same tank) have exactly the same coloration and patern, even if 2 of them stay smaller (around 15 these days, 11 in September)...

[ElTofi]

@Matt :

I kind of "powerfeed" them, as they receive the same amount of food than the others, but I throw "special panaque" food into the tank twice a day. This means :

- Hikari algae wafers chips
- Novo pleco chips XXL
- Hikari sinking "green reef" pellets (for Malawi/Tanga)
- once a week : a big zucchini

Moreover, they also take small bites of shrimps, mussels, earthworms, anchors, when stingrays, Cichlas, Myleus and Arow's let it fall on the bottom... It's not assigned to them, but it seems they never read a book classifying them as "not carnivore"...

I clean the bottom with a suction pvc pipe every 2-3 days, doing a 200-300 liters waterchange in the same time. This means around 1000 liters water change per week, more or less 10%.

I cleaned (rinced) my two gravity pond filter for the first time in 6 months in early April... That was a MUST not for biological filtration, which was still perfect, but for the suspended "mud" into the water...

I must admit this tank (yes, you can still call it a tank ) is a BLAST !

[rob rensen]

Just read this..great tank and awesome fish. Like (ofcourse) you're panaque's....nice L27

[MatsP]

I'm confident they aren't

Panaque cf_armbrusteri`tocantins`

as they are essentially brown in colour. But I'm very suspicious of 3 of the images in the Cat-eLog as they look almost identical to those of juvenile

Panaque sp(l191)

. Can we check that they aren't placed incorrectly?

Would you be able to post in "Catelog Issues" which pictures are placed incorrectly. In this thread, I'm afraid they'll just end up "lost" - and if there are pictures that are "wrong", we should fix it.

--
Mats

[matthewfaulkner]

I'm confident they aren't

Panaque cf_armbrusteri`tocantins`

as they are essentially brown in colour. But I'm very suspicious of 3 of the images in the Cat-eLog as they look almost identical to those of juvenile

Panaque sp(l191)

. Can we check that they aren't placed incorrectly?

Would you be able to post in "Catelog Issues" which pictures are placed incorrectly. In this thread, I'm afraid they'll just end up "lost" - and if there are pictures that are "wrong", we should fix it.

--
Mats

I'll make a thread now before I forget.

@Matt :

I kind of "powerfeed" them, as they receive the same amount of food than the others, but I throw "special panaque" food into the tank twice a day. This means :

- Hikari algae wafers chips
- Novo pleco chips XXL
- Hikari sinking "green reef" pellets (for Malawi/Tanga)
- once a week : a big zucchini

Moreover, they also take small bites of shrimps, mussels, earthworms, anchors, when stingrays, Cichlas, Myleus and Arow's let it fall on the bottom... It's not assigned to them, but it seems they never read a book classifying them as "not carnivore"...

I clean the bottom with a suction pvc pipe every 2-3 days, doing a 200-300 liters waterchange in the same time. This means around 1000 liters water change per week, more or less 10%.

I cleaned (rinced) my two gravity pond filter for the first time in 6 months in early April... That was a MUST not for biological filtration, which was still perfect, but for the suspended "mud" into the water...

I must admit this tank (yes, you can still call it a tank ) is a BLAST !

Thanks for the info. Is it possible for you to observe what they actually eat? Or do you feed these in the hope they get to them? I thought you might feed more vegetables but given the amount of stuff they can graze on it's probably not that necessary. And you're obviously doing it right because they're growing like mad.

What are your water parameters like?

[ElTofi]

waterchanges as already told, based on tap water. The values of tap water are, depending on rain or snow melting, in a range from :

GH : 8 to 12
KH : 6 to 8
conductivity : 180 to 300 microsiemens/cm2

when changing water, there is no measurable temperature variation, as I only change 300 liters at a time, on a more than 9'500 liters netto. So it stays around 26-27°C

Considering food :

I see regularly they eat Hikari (algae wafers + sinking "green" pellets), NovoPlec XXL, chunking wood of any soft specie I throw in (every 2-3 months a new big branch).

I never caught them on zuchini... but I guess they do love it to, as it can't be the result of the only Baryancistrus and Loaches... I guess it's all by night.

Quite often, I catch them chewing on a shrimp or anchors bite...

But I guess the most important trick is well known : space + food + more than regular waterchanges

[ElTofi]

those babies are not Catfishes, ok, but still... I thought you might be interested

[rob rensen]

Nice....very nice.

I'm very curious about the panaque's Please show us some more pics

[ElTofi]

as begged...
the Arowana on the upper left is 22 cm. The Myleus on the right, around 25 cm TL. So you can guess the size of the Cichla, which are impossible to shoot from closer. Everytime I focus on them, they dive into the deeper further end of the tank... They still didn't get that I'm the one who's feeding them...



the smallest Panaque schaeferi, which is still 14 cm TL. I guess the biggest is 3-4 more cm TL. But I've been unable to catch it.

[rob rensen]

Great tank....really awesome

[ElTofi]

a last one for tonight...