In planning for one of my 300 litre tanks I've been looking for Central American catfish and that search threw up a coupe of Ancistrus and Chaetostoma species so while I went down that rabbit hole I came across both the Striped and Spotted forms of the Bulldog Pleco and their profiles on Seriously Fish and Planet Catfish have words to the effect of them benefiting from harder and alkaline water.
https://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/chaetostoma-sp https://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/chaetostoma-cf-thomsoni/
Neither of these are the Chaetostoma species from Costa Rica/ Panama that I was looking for (seems highly unlikely to find any non domestic bred Central American fish in the hobby, though thats a longer story) which I would expect to fit into that descriptor of harder, alkaline waters. But these two species come from Colombia, in particular the Rio Orinoco and some of its tributaries.
I just wondered if I could get a couple of opinions from people as it first opens up a good option for my tank with my 7.4ph and 16/17gh water? I note their requirements for cooler, highly oxygenated and higher flow tank too which I can provide and which fits with the other species I want to keep
.
Then secondly, how do we interpret this info overall? Presumably if there is a habitat for these plecos what other fish from the Rio Orinocco region would do well in my waters? I'll add this species Chaetostoma Joropo to the mix, comes from two of the same regions as Chaetostoma Formosa and is stated as being supplied to the hobby with Formosa via bycatch or 'contamination'.
https://www.planetcatfish.com/common/species.php?species_id=6595
This profile states conductivity rather than hardness - which when high can indicate a high TDS which can imply harder water, though I appreciate TDS could just mean there is a lot of leaf litter so it could be a little inconclusive but the compatibility section is particularly interesting.
Sexy reading eh! But just to pull out a few that stand out to me Panaqolus Maccus - the Clown Pleco, Lasiancistrus Tentaculatus, Parodon Apolinari (which I saw annoyingly recently!) Potentially Hemibrycon Metae if this is Hephessobrycon Metae and Apteronotus Albifrons the Black Ghost Knife Fish... and when you read up on some of their profiles these do state a range of hardness that goes much higher than I would expect for South American species.
You can probably tell I'm quite excited by this and really interested to see others thoughts on this.
Wills
https://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/chaetostoma-sp https://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/chaetostoma-cf-thomsoni/
Neither of these are the Chaetostoma species from Costa Rica/ Panama that I was looking for (seems highly unlikely to find any non domestic bred Central American fish in the hobby, though thats a longer story) which I would expect to fit into that descriptor of harder, alkaline waters. But these two species come from Colombia, in particular the Rio Orinoco and some of its tributaries.
I just wondered if I could get a couple of opinions from people as it first opens up a good option for my tank with my 7.4ph and 16/17gh water? I note their requirements for cooler, highly oxygenated and higher flow tank too which I can provide and which fits with the other species I want to keep
. Then secondly, how do we interpret this info overall? Presumably if there is a habitat for these plecos what other fish from the Rio Orinocco region would do well in my waters? I'll add this species Chaetostoma Joropo to the mix, comes from two of the same regions as Chaetostoma Formosa and is stated as being supplied to the hobby with Formosa via bycatch or 'contamination'.
https://www.planetcatfish.com/common/species.php?species_id=6595
This profile states conductivity rather than hardness - which when high can indicate a high TDS which can imply harder water, though I appreciate TDS could just mean there is a lot of leaf litter so it could be a little inconclusive but the compatibility section is particularly interesting.
Sexy reading eh! But just to pull out a few that stand out to me Panaqolus Maccus - the Clown Pleco, Lasiancistrus Tentaculatus, Parodon Apolinari (which I saw annoyingly recently!) Potentially Hemibrycon Metae if this is Hephessobrycon Metae and Apteronotus Albifrons the Black Ghost Knife Fish... and when you read up on some of their profiles these do state a range of hardness that goes much higher than I would expect for South American species.
You can probably tell I'm quite excited by this and really interested to see others thoughts on this.
Wills
