New Hoplo Cats

[Rokuzachi]

At last! Almost two years of nothing locally, and then a batch of these guys showed up. I picked up two of them, might get another two if they're still there next week. I'm pretty sure they are Megalechis picta (was hoping they were thoracata when I first saw them, but I wanted both eventually).

 

[Coursair]

Nice ! I love Catfish. Never kept Hoplos before.

 

[Rokuzachi]

Nice ! I love Catfish. Never kept Hoplos before.

I highly recommend them - they're kind of like big cory cats (or at least what I remember from keeping cories back in the day). They're rarely inactive and they aren't shy at all.

The ones in my main tank aren't skittish at all either when it comes to contact, they were taking food from my hand within a week of getting them home, lol. They're also tough as heck. If they can survive in random drainage ditches in Florida, they can probably survive just about anything an aquarium can throw at them. 3 of my brown hoplos came wild caught from FL, and they were utterly infested with parasites - but they didn't seem to mind and didn't act sick at all during their entire treatment.

If you can manage to find them they're worth setting up a tank for

 

[bettaowner]

Neat fish

 

[Rokuzachi]

Sadly both of the M. picta died in quarantine over the last two days.

Visually healthy, active, eating, behaving like hoplo cats do - I woke up one morning and one was gone, the other the following evening. I returned to the store and found that the entire shipment of them kicked the bucket and the tank they had been in is now quarantined.

The lesson: If you can wait to buy a fish from the LFS, give it a week or two there before you do so. I was a bit overzealous since I had been unable to find them before, and now I'm out $40 and have contaminated some of my other fish with (presumably) what they had.

 

[Nelo]

I know this is late but sorry to hear about your fishies