Hi all, found several of these buggers at a shop near my home. Brought home the largest and took some pics. What species is this? Akysis?

Its 5 cm in length from tip of snout to the tip of the lower lobe of the tail.

First image is a side profile. Second image is of the frontal head profile with all the chiu chius.

I would lean towards (a very nice XL) A. prashadi. Substrate divers the Akysids are.

Thanks for the tentative ID Kamphol. Yes this fella is a substrate diver. When I released it from the bag and into the photo tank, the bugger went straight into the gravel and refused to appear until I prodded it out.

Would this fish be able to ingest Boraras or Indostomus? I'm not sure where to house it right now.

By the way, any idea on its maximum length? I'd also appreciate some notes on its care in the aquarium. If it needs fast-flowing waters I'll keep it with my corys and barbs in another higher-current tank.

Better images of the Akysis.





Photobucket resized the images automatically.

Anyone able to figure out the gender of this fella? I hope the underbelly image is of help.

Not a piscivore by nature, especially if it gets ample access to its staple fare of bloodworms or tubifex. It will go into a "feedy frenzy" upon scent of these. Fast flow is not as important as dissolved oxygen (as you will by now notice they are quite sedentary). Dorsal spine maybe noxious, as in corys.

Yours is already near its max length in the 6 cm range. Gotta love jumbo Akysis.

Can't see papilla to determine male gender.

Ahh.. just the kinda catfish I love. I feed tubifex most of the time so this fella will be very very happy indeed. Do they feed on tablet foods? Sometimes I feed my corys with sinking tabs and I remember that my previous Hara hara? fed on those too. I'm not sure if this fella will.



Thanks for the info, much appreciated. Have always wanted to keep some of the Akysids and a bag of these buggers appeared so I took home one to try. Guess I'll be getting several more.

Looks like a male...

Let me try and get a better underbelly image.

This is the best I could do for now. The bugger won't stay still in the position for long.

Ooh, looks femme.

There's a tiny pointed thingy near the vent if you view it closely from the side. It doesn't appear in the images because its really small.

Got one of these today. Stormhawk, how's yours doing?

Its somewhere in the tank with all of my bigger corys and some assorted barbs. Doesn't like to forage in the open. I know its still around because it does appear during feeding time. When the lights are on it will run for cover.

Mine's in a bare tank. Yesterday, when I brought it back, it tried to hide behind the inlet pipe. Today, it is on the tank bottom but does not move about often.