I just bought a salmon catfish to go in with my Oscar. He didn't know what to do with it at first, but I think he's settled now. The catfish is already 13cm long and he's pretty happy with his new environment. What do you think of these catfish?

Not too familiar with the salmon catfish. However, there is one native to Australia which grows quite big, probably too big for home aquarium. If this is the one you've got, you may have problems at some stage.

Nope. Did some looking up, and asked about it, these should only grow to 30-50cms. But that is not always the case. I guess I will have to wait and see? But it's so cute. Poor Oshie. When it swims past him, he goes pale and watches it closely. I don't think he's used to having something quite so large in with him, and something so active! But he was happy to have a big feed of worms so he can't be that bad!! Piggy!!!

You don't consider 18 inches to be a large fish?

Actually, even though they do have the potential to reach these maximum sizes, they rarely do in captivity, so hopefully he will be okay.

I consider a 12 foot arapaim gigas a big fish- but not a 18'' catfish. That's medium in fish sizes for me:lol:

artemis1 wrote:


Arapaima

Yes, this sure is one big fish. We had a series of programmes here called "Jungle hooks" it followed a British angler whilst he travelled through South America looking for that elusive fish. In the end, he was introduced to this massive lake that not many people knew about. He did catch a huge one, but only on a hand line. Apparently, fishing rods are not allowed on certain lakes.

http://www.jeremywade.co.uk/on_television.html

Hehe. Yeah, at the moment I am getting together money so I can definantly have a pretty massive tank, about 4000 litre. Like....a swimming pool, filled with fish! I don't know how, or when, but I will have it! I will have to dedicate one room to fish. Well, probably more! But what the heck, they are the best destressing system I have!

I kept 2 salmon catfish with 2 tiger Oscars (and lots of other Australian native fish) in a 9 foot 1500 liter aquarium for 8 years. The cats could take a beating from the Oscars, but I think the Oscars eventually learned that the Salmon Catfish had poisonous spines.

I had trouble with my first catfish sulking, so I added a second and they became very active.

I found them to be very compatible in my large aquarium, and they ate up all that mess that the Oscars made.

I recorded some notes and photos on my fishy web page
www.geocities.com/safishkeeper/salmon.html

Hope this helps