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Little Yellow Catfish With Spots??

by Robert Moneyhan,
From "Splash" Milwaukee Aquarium Society
Aquarticles

Working at a pet store gives me the opportunity to encounter many unique species of fish. One afternoon, about two years ago near the end of May, we obtained a group of catfish from one of our wholesalers. The cats had a torpedo shaped body that was pale yellowish green with black leopard spots fading to a bright white belly. They were small, only about an inch and a quarter long. It was easy to tell male from female with these little catfish. They can be sexed just like a livebearer. The female’s anal fin looks like a normal fish’s anal fin, but the male’s anal fin is modified and resembles a spearhead. I had never seen anything like them before and was immediately captivated by them.

I hunted all over the place (books, Internet, library documents, etc.) but could not find any information on how to keep and breed these little gems. At that time the only information available on these unique catfish was a few photos of dead specimens in atlases (not much information), and a very short article in issue number 12 of the Aqualog News. I decided to research this catfish’s behavioral habits and reproduction myself. At that time I had NO idea what that would entail. I found out soon enough though! The catfish turned out to be very nocturnal in nature, venturing out only occasionally during the day to grab a bit of food and then rapidly return to their hiding place. If I was to learn anything about these little cats I was going to have to observe them in the dead of night. There was just one problem though, I’m not a cat that can see in the dark. How was I going to see them to research them? If any lights were turned on in the room, the catfish would swim off and hide. I decided to draw from my experience with saltwater reef aquariums where I would watch the nocturnal life using a red lens on a flashlight. So there I was, 3 o’clock in the morning, laying on the floor of my basement with a pen in one hand and a flashlight in the other taking notes. Needless to say, that didn’t last very long.

After a lot of very early mornings I decided that I had to do something different. Little did I know what I was about to do next! The only viable answer was an infra-red video camera. One thousand three hundred dollars later I was back in business. I know, who in their right mind would spend $1300 just to watch their fish?! A fish hobbyist, that’s who!! We are never in our right minds!

I ended up contacting Richard Vari of the Smithsonian Institute’s Ichthyological division. He gave me the e-mail address of a lady at the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, a Dr. Luisa Maria Soares-Porto. She had just finished a revision of the sub-family Cetromochlinae (driftwood catfishes) in 1997, and presented it at the International Symposium of the Phylogeny and Classification of Neotropical Fishes held in 1998. Dr. Soares-Porto informed me that I have what was formerly known as Tatia perugiae (syn. T. altae). The new classification of this catfish was Centromochlus perugiae. I spent the next two years taping, researching, taking notes, and taking measurements of the fish and their water parameters. After the March 2001 M.A.S. meeting, while we were awaiting our food at the Rustic Inn, Tom Wojtech asked me how my leopard cats were doing and if they had spawned yet. "No" I said, "just the same old swimming in circles and the male chasing the females". That night I went down to feed my catfish and something tiny moved! I had perugiae cat fry!! There were 18 that I could count. Most of them still had a small yolk sac remnant, so they couldn’t have been more than a few days old. The only thing I could think of that induced the parents to spawn is that I had done a 50% water change the weekend before, after which I noticed that the de-ionizing resin on my reverse osmosis filter had expired. The water hardness and pH in the tank had increased because of it.

The fry looked like little brown splinters of wood a little smaller than 1/4 inch in length and very thin. Over the next few weeks they grew at an alarming rate. Since March they have grown to almost 3/4 of an inch long. At only a couple of months of age they started to develop their spotted pattern. Eventually they looked like tiny versions of their parents. They are very ravenous feeders preferring to search the water’s surface for food. The catfish fry were not picky about what they ate. They ate flakes, bloodworms (insect larvae actually), baby brine shrimp, shaved adult brine shrimp, and live mosquito larvae, it didn’t seem to matter to them.

It has been two long years since I started this project, but all the money, lack of sleep, and patience has paid off. It was definitely worth it.