Twig Catfish

[CatoeSc]

I have a 40 breeder and an considering a twig catfish in addition to some oticinclus and yellow shrimp. Anybody have any input on this?

[KungFish]

Your Farlowella should be fine as long you make sure that it gets some food that the otos can't get to, because a swarm of otos would eat much faster than a lone twig cat.

[racoll]

Hi there. I found

Farlowella

a great fish, and not too difficult (providing you observe the points below). I kept a group of

Farlowella vittata

for a while. These come from the Colombian Llanos, and are the most common in the trade. A few points to bear in mind:

1. Buy healthy, lively fish that are feeding and interacting with each other in the shop; avoid fish that ignore food, and remain breathing hard and stuck near the filter outlet.

2. Water parameters are not too important, but ideally aim for neutral water (pH 6.5-7.5) with TDS around 150 mg/l.

3. Keep temp around 26-27C. Watch out for temperature spikes and low oxygen levels. I lost most of my Farlowella in a heatwave when the temp went over 32C.

4. They should eat the same foods as the otos. Combine various veg with decent flake or algae wafer. Sushi nori might be a good thing to experiment with.

5. Goes without saying that water quality should be good: this means regular water changes combined with decent filtration and water movement.

6. They are easy to sex when mature, and reasonably easy to breed. I suggest getting more than one.

7. Despite the fact that they are often recommended for planted tanks, I found they do better with a bit more room, as they are not the most agile of fish. I found a sand substrate with driftwood branches and shade from a few Anubias or Amazon swords worked well.

[CatoeSc]

Thanks, Racoll, for a very detailed response. We are aiming for a highly planted tank. Our substrate is Seacham dark and a bit course, particularly compared to sand. I don't want to get something that won't do okay in our tank. I know what you mentioned are "ideal," but do you think if I do just go with one it would do okay? BTW, no driftwood, only petrified wood and various rocks. I've added pics so you can see what I'm doing.

[zeebo]

[img]http://i1184.photobucket.com/album ... .jpg[/img]

Hi, I keep one farlowella, posted this pic ,he is hard to see, but look on far right branch ,you can see his tail and body, he looks like part of the branch. He keeps the tank very clean,eats zucchini,and they are very akward moving around in the tank. They kinda hop sidways or foward, so they do need room to move around. Not sure how it would fare with petrified wood,but this guy loves to hang out on all different parts of the wood in my tank. At night he goes all around the glass to clean it-54G corner/trigon. (my few plants are obviously silk, no green thumb here).

I agree ,that was great detailed info the above member gave you .
Georgie

[Richard B]

Are those serpae tetras in your tank? If so how many are there?

As you want the farlowella to thrive I think the tank set-up isn't ideal. Some wood branches & a finer substrate would be better. What filtration do you have & how is oxygenation achieved? These might be important factors

[CatoeSc]

I have 5 serpae tetras. The filter is a Marineland C360. I intentionally got a filter that was geared for a larger tank. I'm not doing any oxygenation yet, but would love some tips.

[racoll]

I would recommend some wood in the tank. As you can see in zeebo's picture, they do like to live on wood (hence their appearance). I think it also helps their digestion, having some woody "roughage" to graze upon.

Do you have CO2 on the tank?

[CatoeSc]

No CO2 yet. Need to learn how it works and get it set up.

[racoll]

Not sure

Farlowella

are a good option if you're experimenting with CO2. Perhaps better just stick to the

Otocinclus

, as they will be more tolerant of any mishaps.

[CatoeSc]

Thank you all for the advice. I will pass on one of these guys for now... Perhaps some future tank might work, but I don't want something that isn't going to be happy in there.