At both the Catfish Convention and the Aquafest auction, I picked up a bag of Ancistrus sp. L279 dwarf bushy-nosed plecos. After keeping them for other a year, I think this species is a fantastic match for a planted aquarium. They max out in length around 4 inches so they’re not going to inadvertently uproot plants from their size. Mine are not shy, so I see them on wood or lounging on open substrate, and they’re fairly active algae eaters. Plus, they’re very attractive fish with white markings on the tips of their tail, and many have very nice spots on their body. I’m guessing that the spots are a gender distinction because some of mine have very pronounced ones, and others not so much.

I don’t have any with huge sections of tentacles/growths on their snout, but they do have some small barbels. I’m hoping that as my latest batch grows up, they’ll develop these further. I’ve seen this species posted on Aquabid, sometimes called Ancistrus sp. ‘Huaca Mayo,’ so if you come across this listing, give them a try — they’re a great little ancistrus!

The Red Lizard Catfish, or Hemiloricaria sp. ‘Red’ (L10a), is my new favorite catfish. It’s a whiptail catfish, but stays much smaller than your typical whiptail. This fish tops out around 4 inches in length, making them a wonderful catfish for all but the smallest of tanks. I bought three of these fish last fall at the Catfish Convention from a vendor out of Erie, PA.

Native to the Rio Tocantins in Brazil, I thought that these fish would fit in nicely with my Apistogramma cacatuoides. They’re very active fish, constantly scurrying along the rocks, glass, and substrate looking for something to eat. They’re not aggressive at all, and the cichlids don’t seem to bother them, even when the cichlids are spawning. I’m really hoping that some vendors at AquaFest 2007 will have more of these so that I can stock several more in my tanks. I haven’t tried breeding them yet, but it has been done, so if I do get more, I may dedicate a small tank to that purpose.

Today was the final day of the 2006 Catfish Convention, and consisted solely of an all-day auction. This auction was made up of 10 lots, plus a dry-goods lot run by Ray “Kingfish” Lucas to help raise money for next year’s convention. The auction started at 10:00am. By 1:00, there were so many items to auction, that they had only gotten through lots 1 and 2, and the dry goods. I didn’t stay until the end because I had blackworms that I needed to get home to the refrigerator, but I imagine it went on for hours after I left.

(Everyone checked out the auction goods before it started.) 

I came home with a fair amount of “loot” from this convention. I don’t have any pictures of it now, but I’m sure I’ll post some in the future:

I came home with a fair amount of “loot” from this convention. I don’t have any pictures of it now, but I’m sure I’ll post some in the future:

• anubias barterii nana “petite”
• 3 Red Lizard Whiptail Catfish
• crypt. wentii. (thanks Sean)
• 2 pairs of Dwarf Crayfish, regular brown variety.
• 5 juenvenille L-279 Bristlenosed Plecos (Ancistrus sp.”Huacamayo”)
• 13 young melanotaenia praecox rainbowfish.
• 1 Pair apistogramma viejitas (This is my favorite pull for the weekend!)
• 1 potion of Blackworms from Eastern Aquatics.

Today was the first day of the All Aquarium 2006 Catfish Convention put on by the Potomac Valley Aquarium Society, a large local aquarium club. The program director is Andrew Blumhagen (left), who opened the convention by introducing to us hobbiest, and corydora expert, Ian Fuller (right), all the way from Great Britain.

Ian’s first, of two, presentations at this convention was largely about identifying corydoradine catfish. He presented a number of well drawn slides, such as the one below, showing in detail the growing number of problems in the

classification system of these fish. Basically, he demonstrated how two entirely different species can look too similar to differentiate when put side-by-side. His claim, is that you must know the exact locality to correctly identify the fish. Toward the end of his talk, he mentioned that the situation is only being exacerbated by human factors, such as deforestation, pollution, and dam construction. These factors are causing species to migrate out of their normal habitat, entering new environment. The changes in their environment are causing the fish to develop different color morphs, further complicating identification.

The second speaker at the convention was Lee Finley, who gave a presentation focusing solely on how to feed your catfish the kind of food they would normally eat in the wild. Basically, catfish don’t just eat algae and detritus when in the wild. Depending on the species, they’ll eat wood, bark, algae, detritus, veggie matter, fish, insects, larvae, worms, the list goes on. His slide of the commonly known Vampire Pleco, or Rabbit Tooth Pleco, illustrated how specialized some of these catfish have become. These Plecos used their “two front teeth” to chisel away at wood, searching for inserts; much like a wood pecker would do in a forest. Unfortunately, Lee had to rush through his talk in order for everyone to make it to the much anticipated Italian dinner.

Finally, the last topic I was able to hear for the day was put on by Dinyar and Rusty Lalkaka. This father and son duo gave us a quick tour a number of interesting Asian catfishes. Even though Asian Catfish are only second to South American fish in terms of the diversification of both species and genus, few hobbiest know or keep them. One of the lone exceptions is probably the glass catfish, which are at every LFS in the world.
The last two topics were titled “Catfishes in the Classroom” and “Breeding Loricariids.” Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to stick around for those two, but I’m sure they were quite interesting. Stay tuned for more convention coverage from Day 2, tomorrow!