My catfish

sir_keith

sir_keith

Legendary Member
Contributing Member Level III
fishguy1978 said:
I was able to go visit @John58Ford’s fish room yesterday and now my T intermedia have water that is more to their liking.
Really cool to see how much you can do with small tanks and a creative mind.
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I agree.

In his seminal book 'Cichlids of the World,' published by TFH Press in 1973, Dr. Robert Goldstein wrote-

"You can keep killifishes in a closet, but a 'cichlidiot' needs a fish room."

I once saw that first-hand. When I was a postdoc at Yale I met a graduate student who was doing just that- keeping killifishes in a closet adjacent to the lab. He had an amazing collection of these tiny jewels, each in its own small tank; there must have been 25-30 of them. And he'd regularly get eggs of exotic species in the mail, shipped in peat from locations all over the world. Seriously cool.

I saw a somewhat different example of the small-scale approach when I met a local hobbyist in New Haven who was a long-time 'cichlidiot' and national officer of the ACA. He specialized in Apistogramma, and had one of the most beautiful fish rooms I've ever seen, with row after row of small, stainless-steel frame tanks. He kept many species that were unknown to science at the time (1975). Awesome.

That's one of the great things about this hobby- there are so many different ways to do it, with something for everyone.
 
John58Ford

John58Ford

Well-Known Member
It was a cool visit, and the little cats are a cool addition to my tanks stockings and my 5th small cat species. Very much appreciated and you are welcome to visit any time. It was awesome seeing there's another family out there that still has nice well grounded kids, must be a fishkeeper trait, or maybe a brothers in arms thing, I dunno.

We must be careful in our hobby though, a tiny tank or two are the gateway drug to cichlidiocy and excess. It started as a tiny tank on my wine rack to breed snake food, then I hid one in my TV stand, then I built a tank rack, and now I'm working on another lol. Good news, I don't have any tanks hidden in my TV stand anymore; that's where I hide bags of chemicals, 5 gallon buckets, and a wider variety of fish food than my closest pet store stocks lol.
 
sir_keith

sir_keith

Legendary Member
Contributing Member Level III
DMD123 said:
:rofl Had me laughing!
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John58Ford said:
...a tiny tank or two are the gateway drug to cichlidiocy and excess...
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Goldstein is witty throughout the book; here is the rest of that passage, which begins Chapter 5 on 'Breeding Cichlids'-

'The principles to be discussed in this section are geared to the interests of the "cichlidiot." The cichlidiot is a fanatic. He cannot be expected to (1) behave rationally when it comes to his hobby or (2) pay any attention to the non-spoken considerations normal people give to their wives and children. He'd rather watch his fish than the ball game, clean tanks than mow the lawn or fix the leaky tap, travel twenty miles to a fish friend's house than down to the corner for a bottle of milk, and move a hundred gallon tank than take out the garbage. He is also more likely to purchase this book than send his wife an anniversary card. Thus, I intend to discuss how the "cichlidiot" handles his fish room, and the novice will just have to decide for himself how small he wishes to start, and to what limits he is willing (or able) to go.

You can keep killifishes in a closet, but the "cichlidiot" needs a fish room. This can be a room in the house proper (where we plan to ruin the floor), or it can be (and ought to be) a section (only 90%) of the basement or garage... '

And so on like that. I have a first edition of this book, which I bought whilst in graduate school; you can sometimes find it online (it has orange chromides on the cover). Later editions (with A. agassizii on the cover) can be found on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Cichlids-World-Robert-Goldstein/dp/0866228934).
 
fishguy1978

fishguy1978

Legendary Member
C brevirostris 7 total. 3F 4M, I think. 2F for sure.
55g tank varying depth but never full
Ph ~7.4
Nitrate ~10
Temp 78F
Water changes with cold 55F rain water
Substrate is play sand with some aragonite
Feeding frozen blood worms, Kens catfish and pleco stick and Kens green fry food.
Planning to get live black worms
 
John58Ford

John58Ford

Well-Known Member
Big fan of the matten filters. I'm thinking I moved too fast on the 125 just using sponge blocks on the weir. Might end up draining it this summer and putting some ridges in there to hold a huge corner matten.
 
clownie

clownie

Well-Known Member
fishguy1978 said:
C brevirostris 7 total. 3F 4M, I think. 2F for sure.
55g tank varying depth but never full
Ph ~7.4
Nitrate ~10
Temp 78F
Water changes with cold 55F rain water
Substrate is play sand with some aragonite
Feeding frozen blood worms, Kens catfish and pleco stick and Kens green fry food.
Planning to get live black worms
Click to expand...
I normally increase the water flow when I do the cold water change. It seems to work for me. Not 100% of the time but frequently.
 
fishguy1978

fishguy1978

Legendary Member
Stopped by Euro Aquatics to see if he had live black worms and left with 6 Corydoras melini and a C brevirostris juvie. There were 6 fat brevirostris adults available at $23ea :(IMG_20240311_173242333.jpgIMG_20240311_184703393.jpg
 
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fishguy1978

fishguy1978

Legendary Member
I have been keeping a thread on planet catfish to record my attempt to spawn the C brevirostris. An other hobbyist noticed that the corys I have don't have the black I stripe that should be present. I posted a better picture and did some comparison research. There are two species that look almost identical C brevirostris and C delphax. My group is mostly the latter with only 2 brevi's.
C delphax on left. C brevi on right. The body spotting is different too.
IMG_20240312_184624489.jpg
 
lloyd378

lloyd378

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Staff member
Contributing Member Level III
I like Rafael’s! But the two times I’ve owned them, I typically only see them about twice per year. Haha

But they were also little fatties so they were eating.
 
fishguy1978

fishguy1978

Legendary Member
My C similis have spawned but the eggs fungused. Most likely they were sterile. I need to go out to the woods and find some alder cones.
 
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