New to Site & Fish

[AshlieAlvey]

Hello,
My family and I are brand new to fishkeeping and I think this forum would be a great place for us to learn as much as I can about caring for our new fin-babies.

We just adopted the four of them from a friend. They are all around 5-6 years old and have, from what I am told, been raised up together. At their previous home they were in a 35G tank and we now have them in a 55G {48Lx13Dx22H} (freshwater).

We have one frontosa, 2 catfish (I am not certain of their specific names, I am actually hoping you all might be able to help with that), and we have 1 pleco (I'd like to know the specific name of this guy too!)

So far they are doing great! I'll post a link to their photos so that perhaps you guys could tell me exactly what I have.

Also, it appears that BOTH of my catfish swim upside down at will...I was told that only one of them could (the black one with white stripes)...but after only 2 days the other guy( light brown with dark brown spots of various sizes) is doing it too! Hoping that is fine and normal.

Here are some photos taken with my phone. I'll take some better ones with my camera when I get a chance.


This is my pleco, keep in mine this is with my phone so he's a little more of a brown, and less orangey.

Puck by AshlieAlvey, on Flickr

This is one of my catfish: He swims upside down. Unsure of the type of catfish he is.

Milo by AshlieAlvey, on Flickr

My black catfish, unsure of the type of catfish he is. But he also swims upside down.

Banjo by AshlieAlvey, on Flickr

and last but not least, our frontosa

Finneas by AshlieAlvey, on Flickr

Happy New Year!!

[Ukdans1k]

Hi
And welcome to the exciting world of fish keeping.

From what I can see in your pic:

You have a common plec, could be a sailfin or a cross between the two but hard to tell as its fin is down in he pic. But I could be wrong.

The spotty catfish looks like a pertricola variety but not sure which one as I believe there is about 4 or 5 varieties .

You other catfish I can't remember the name of , but my brother in law has them so I will ask him and get back to you.

You frontosa looks like it could be a kigoma. It's not Burundi or zaire blue. But yet again there is about 20 varieties. I do love frontosa I have serval Burundi .

Be aware that they get big about 12-15 inches for a male. They also don't like being alone, although yours looks happy. They do better in a group. Males are very territorial towards each other and they are very hard to sex. Research venting as this will tell you how it's done . Frontosa are deep water piscavores , in the wild they feed on a diet of only fish. Altho tank breed fish eat pellet and frozen foods. Avoid blood worm and other frozen worm varieties . Mine love mysis and frozen fish, which are saltwater fish as there is less risk of disease transfer.

If you like You can feed frontosa on live fish, guppys gold fish ect. If they can fit it in there mouth then they will eat it. But be careful of transfer of disease yet again. Also look up float as sometimes they can suffer with this.

Anyway good luck and enjoy
Dan