Compsaraia Compsa

[Mr._Fishy]

So today I was browsing aquabid looking for a puffer and ran across this little guy. I couldn't find much info when I did a google search. Does anybody here know anything about these?

Ryan

 

[nmonks]

Fishbase is your friend here. Apparently some sort of knifefish, closely related to the more popular Apteronotus albifrons. Presumably similar in terms of care: excellent water quality, prefers small live foods, etc.

Given there's nothing written about it from an aquarist's perspective, I'd tend to steer clear unless you're an advanced hobbyist.

Cheers, Neale

 

[Mr._Fishy]

I have kept a few different species of knife fish (Currently have A. Albifrons and X. Nigri and have kept G. Carapo) and some other delicate fish. Fishbase said that the max size recorded is 34 cm. A 4' x 18" should fit it for life, correct? I will be doing weekly 50% water changes as this is what I do for all of my other tanks (besides fry tanks).

Ryan

 

[nmonks]

Fishbase said that the max size recorded is 34 cm. A 4' x 18" should fit it for life, correct?

Not necessarily. With rarely seen species, the Fishbase estimate will be based (I'm assuming) on the type description. In other words, the maximum size the original describers of the species reported. This can be completely different to the maximum size of the fish if scientists at that point had only looked at immature or small individuals.

There are a LOT of fish on Fishbase that have maximum sizes well below what we see in aquaria, but aquarists, unlike scientists, watch their fish "from cradle to the grave". The maximum size of peppered Corydoras for example is 5.9 cm on Fishbase, whereas Baensch gives a much more realistic maximum size of 7 cm. A lot of Mbuna routinely get substantially bigger in aquaria than they do in the wild as well.

So while 34 cm may be a typical size, there's no reason to assume that this fish will absolutely never get any bigger. You'd ideally want to read the paper where this new species is described. An academic library will help here, failing that, the library at the Natural History Museum in London lets people come in a read these papers for free. If you're not in the UK, I'm sure your local public library will help you obtain the paper/book at low/zero cost.

Cheers, Neale