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Leopard Ctenopoma advice

8K views 15 replies 6 participants last post by  tophat665 
#1 ·
Well, this seems to be one of the oddballs that Petsmart has started keeping regularly (usually in the same tank with Dwarf Puffers, go figure). They've got them at a good price at about an inch and a half long on a regular basis. I have a 25 gallon tall planted tank going - lots of driftwood, Java Moss, and Cabomba, little bit of pennywort. Right now, it's got a Male Bristlenosed Pleco, a small Blue Gourami, and a godzillion feeder guppies.

I'm going to cull the guppies tomorrow, but I am pondering getting 3 Leopard Ctenos to put in there and grow out a bit for the 110 Gallon African Tank I'll be setting up, hopefully later this month.

Will they wax plump on guppy fry? This is a population of guppies I've been keeping for about a year, so disease, if it shows up, would come in with the Bushfish. (Incidentally, my wife hears something else when I say "Bushfish" and has made me promise to name one of them Umfufu.)

Anything one ought to know about these guys before plunging ahead?
 
#2 ·
highly predatory on small fish.
they have a lightning fast trike and a mouth that opens extremely wide.
they are not suitable for std community set up but can be housed with most fish that are not small enough to be eaten and not boisterous enough to hassle them.

my pair are kept with larger danios (moustached, giant, megha, yoma)
and also a dwarf snakehead.
 
#3 ·
The eventual home for the bushfish is a 110 gallon with:
2 Senegal Bichirs
2 African Butterflies
1 Featherfin Cat
12 Congo Tetras
4 Swordtails (for live food production :twisted: )

The tank that I am pondering putting them in while I get the other set up, planted, and cycled is a 25 tall (Eclipse tank without the eclipse hood, but with a Versatop, a pair of HOBs, and 36 Watts of Fluorescent light). The thinking is that the Bushfish would eat a lot of the guppy fry and grow out a bit so that I can try and get them into the 110 at about 3" long. If they ate every guppy in the tank, I would shed no tears.
 
#4 ·
they don't mix well with ABFs from what I've read and my ABFs were found dead two days after being introduced to the same tank as my bushfish.
I could detect not marks etc on the abfs and the water parameters were perfect, why they died is anybody's guess but I don't think it was coincidence

apart from the ABF I can see no problem with your planned set up.'it should be noted that the bushfish should be purchased at the same time and introduced together, this will minimise the territorial squabbles that arise when more bushfish are added later (in otherwords, don't add to an existing group).

a little tip on buying a pair
choose the one in the shops' tank that has the largest looking tailfin and the one that has the smallest tailfin, this way you will probably end up with a m/f pair.
 
#5 ·
Thanks much! Unfortuantely, I didn't wait to get this advice. I got 3 of them yesterday and put them in the 25 gallon I spoke of.

Do you think that the 30" vertical dimension of a 110 would keep ABFs high enough to be mostly out of range of harrassment? Even given that I am planning on leaving 2 - 4" of air-space. (Thinking about covering it with egg crate and planting Peace lilies in the back corners of the tank cover to let the roots drop into the water.)
 
#7 ·
tophat665 said:

There they are, chilling out after chowing down on some brine shrimp earlier.
Cool tank!
 
#9 ·
You managed to get a shot of all 3 Ctenopomas.8)
 
#11 ·
Always with Dwarf Puffers. Petsmart is really clever on the breeding side, but they're corporate point of sales standards are, shall we say, sub-optimal. I mean, their Violet Gobies are always in fresh water. They pack all their female bettas and all of their Dwarf Gouramis into the same 20 gallon cube with like 6" of fish per gallon. Until recently, their male bettas were in half pint cups of methylene blue solution. They sell Pangius Catfish, Red Bellied Pacu, and Silver Tip Sharks, and they only get the adult length right on the Pacus (in tiny print), and, just to make it interesting, they say that the DPs and Bushfish require aquarium salt.

Really burns my biscuits, but at the same time gives me a nice smug feeling of superiority. :dunno:

</rant>
Man those little devils can move! I watched them for a day while they acclimated, and they just hung there in the water perfecting their leaf mimicry, but now that they're feeling at home, they zip around pretty good. They use their pectoral fins, which are nearly invisible, and they can move forward or backward with nearly equal facility. I've also noticed that they burp. I guess they use up the air in their labyrinth organ and then belch CO2.

Very cool fish, and much, much prettier than I expected.
 
#12 ·
I think petco, petsmart, and petsuppermarket all suck and i have at least 2 of these each within 35 minutes of me. But walmart is the one that really gets me mad. They should not sell any fish let alone pacu and oscars. :evil:

But one again :nicefish:
 
#14 ·
I'm thinking about getting a single one of these to go in my 29gal community tank that's currently cycling. I plan on keeping a trio of swordtails to pump out fry in order to keep him happy. The thing is, what sort of minimum fish size do I need to have in order to avoid predation? Will one go after kuhli loaches, kribs, the adult swordtails? Will it be able to snag mid-size danios like purple passions? What about hatchet fish? Sorry for all the questions, but I absolutely need to move at least my kribs into a bigger home and I've always wanted one of these fish. Other sources say that the kribensis might bug the hell out of the bushfish.
 
#15 ·
I was advised that in groups of 6 or more, Leopard Ctenos hunt in a pack. With that the case, and the advice I have received to grow out my Bichirs before adding them in, I have reworked the stock list to 2 or 3 Senegal Bichirs, 6 Ctenos, 5 Swordtails (4 Female). The Tank is up and 'scaped, housing 3 dozen feeder guppies and a nice case of ich. Once that settles down, I'll toss in 3 New Ctenos, 3 Old Ctenos, and the swords.

Now, with that stocking, is there anything else I could add? A Shoal of upside down cats (Synodontis nigroventis)? Aside from the swords, I want to keep this West African.

Here's a shot of the tank as of yesterday (I've added some Crypts and some Anubias Barteri I got such a deal on - $5 a plant. Score.)


I've got a nice grove of Hygro to the left, Vals to the right, Swords in the middle, and you can see the ends of 2 of the 8 or so PVC tubes I have tucked in there for Bichir retreats.
 
#16 ·
For the record, even fully grown, male swordtails are small enough for a 3/4 grown bushfish to eat (either that or the bichir ambushed it at night). I'll either be putting the male swordtail culls I get from my friend with the 75 gallon livebearer community, or growing out some swortail fry in my rainbowfish tank, leaving the first male that matures, and switching out my big females from the bushfish tank on a rotating basis to get them preggers.

(Incidently, the bushfish made short work of my excess male platies too.)
 
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