Lophiosilurus Alexandri (pacman Catfish)

[STD]

I went to my a LFS today and in among some Banjo cats I saw something unusual

I got it home and identified it as a Lophiosilurus alexandri

It's about 2" long

Anyone got any ideas on what I should feed it?

 

[CFC]

!!!!!!! you lucky sod, you have no idea how long i've been looking for one of those.

As with most sedentry ambush predators feeding isnt easy and to begin with you are most likely going to need to feed live fish and at the very least live river shrimp, once the fish is feeding confidently you can then start trying to ween it onto frozen foods like prawns and whitebait by waving the food above its mouth using long handled tweezers (you can get these from reptile stores and all you do to make them fish safe is push a couple of lengths of air tube over the ends of the prongs) but whether or not you will have success in getting the fish to take dead foods is completely down to luck.

As a side note river shrimp need to be gut loaded before feeding them to your fish if they are to be the staple of its diet, buy them 24 hours in advance and store them in bucket with an airstone running in it and feed them on a high protein catfish pellet or flake food once when you buy them and again a couple of hours before you use them.

 

[STD]

Thanks for the advise

If you are interested I got in at Birstall Watergardens Centre, Leicestershire

They have a tank with Banjo cats and about 3 Pacman cats

 

[CFC]

Thats a bit far for me really.

Any chance of a picture of yours? Is there any chance they could be Chaca chaca which at that size could easily be mistaken for a Lophosilurus, i dont mean to doubt your identification but Lophiosilurus are a £200-£300 fish and exporters dont make mistakes like that with fish of that value and especially not with multiples in the same batch.

 

[STD]

Thats a bit far for me really.

Any chance of a picture of yours? Is there any chance they could be Chaca chaca which at that size could easily be mistaken for a Lophosilurus, i dont mean to doubt your identification but Lophiosilurus are a £200-£300 fish and exporters dont make mistakes like that with fish of that value and especially not with multiples in the same batch.

It's in hiding at the moment - small fish in a heavily planted tank

I must admit when I saw it in the shop my first thought was chaca chaca then got home and remembered I'd seen an article in the latest PFK about the pacman cat and compared the fish in the bag with the picture and it looked identical

Just looked at a picture of a chaca chaca and its certainly possible I have misidentified it

When it turns up I'll try and post a piccie

 

[STD]

Here are some piccies

Not great quality I'm afraid

 

[CFC]

Thats a Chaca species, though its difficult to tell which one of the 3 species it is without a clearer picture.

 

[Esfa]

it looks like a dead bn plec to me

 

[STD]

Thats a Chaca species, though its difficult to tell which one of the 3 species it is without a clearer picture.

Thanks - I know they are rubbish photos - must get a better camera

it looks like a dead bn plec to me

Yeah it does a bit