Tag Archives: driftwood catfish

Trachelyopterichthys taeniatus

12. July 2019

Among the driftwood catfishes are some quite attractive coloured species. This is a bit astonishing, for these catfishes are usually strictly night active and hide during daytimes in caves or crevices. However, well settled animals usually come out of their wholes at feeding times in the aquarium.

Trachelyopterichthys taeniatus belongs to the really attractive species. It is not a small fish, but attains a total length of about 15 cm. This is worth knowning, for small fish, like cardinals, are among the common food items of the catfish. Otherwise it is peaceful against tankmates. In T. taeniatus an internal insemination appears. For that reason in males the first rays of the anal fin are modified. The eggs are laid later without the males. As far as we know this pretty fish has not been bred yet under aquarium conditions, but this may simply be due the fact that it is only very rarely offered. Currently we have some very nice about halfgrown specimens from Venezuela in stock.

For our customers: the fish have code 297503 on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Tatia dunni „White“

13. November 2017

We were able to import the wooddrift catfish Tatia dunni for the first time in 2010 (see http://www.aquariumglaser.de/en/fish-archives/tatia_dunni_en/). Animals from this stock were given to one of our breeders, Jürgen Hattenberger. Sadly he died unexpected a few weeks ago. Jürgen was able to establish a breeding stock from the first importation and since then we obtained from time to time bred T. dunni from him. He also developed a pale strain from these fish he called T. dunni „White“.

We now received from the closing of the fishhouse of J. Hattenberger both „normal“ bred T. dunni as well as white ones. We hope that the interesting white strain will be preserved in the aquarium hobby.

For our customers: the fish have code 295697 (normal) and 295698 (white) on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer

Centromochlus heckelii

30. January 2017

It is a pity that we can offer this interesting driftwood catfish only very rarely and in small numbers. The species has a wide distribution in the Amazon and Orinoco river basins. It attains a maximum length of about 14-15 cm. Our specimens originate from Peru; here is also the type locality for the species.Two features in that fish are very obvious: the large eyes and the also large pectoral fins which are always spread. The spines of the pectoral fins should be taken with care: one can become nasty stung by them and the spines also tend to tengle up in the meshs of a net when it is necessary to catch the fish. The sexes can be distinguished best by the shape of the maxillary barbels: these barbels are curved in males, straight in females.

For our customers: the fish have code 214703 on our stocklist. Please note that we supply exclusively the wholesale trade.

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer