Anyone have experience w/Farlowella Cats

[locorosa]

The Hubs and I went to check out the lfs and we found a cool fish called a Farlowella. It was tempting us by hanging on the front glass...very cool fish.
Anyway, I came home and after doing some research, I am getting alot of differing recommendations. Varying PH levels, water hardness, and even as to whether they eat wood or not.

The tank I am considering for this fish is a 46 gallon bow front. It's lightly planted, two pieces of driftwood and no CO2 at this time.
I have a HOB and can drop the water levels a tad for him to surface to breath. I can also add more plants if necessary.
Water perimeters are consistently:
ph 7.0-7.2
amm 0
N2 0
N3 0

I don't know what water hardness is but I do know we have slightly soft (very slightly) water.

Tank stock is:

3 Marble Hatchets
2 Panda Cories
2 Bumblebee Cats
5 Cardinal Tetras
4 White Tip Tetras
4 Danios
2 Balloon Rams

The fish appears to be close to full grown as it's 7-8 inches in length and seems very healthy!

Any advice is appreciated and thanks in advance!

http://www.aqua-fish.net/show.php?what=fish&id=341&cur_lang=2

 

[hc8719]

I use to have two of these guys, down to one now. They are very picky eaters, and will not resort to eatting flakes. I have never once seen mine attempt to eat flakes in 7 months so have a strong algae population going, or feed zucchini (preferably over cuccumbers) and algae waffers daily.

These fish are known to starve to death, so don't overestimate their desire to find food.

They are also very lazy, even allowing you to pick them up without too much of a fight (not that you should try it)

They're an interesting fish, and i think a 46 bow would be fine

 

[plecoperson]

A few months after I set up my 55 I researched these after seeing one at my LFS. There are many different Farlowella cats, so you'd first want to get a positive ID on the ones you're considering and an idea of the adult size of the fish.

They need a well-established tank, sparkly-clean water and, as hc said, special attention paid to feeding. You would definitely need to supplement the tank with fresh vegetables like zucchini, green beans, spinach etc. for them to do well.

All in all, even the experts consider this a difficult fish to keep healthy/alive. I just love them, and I am almost ready to try 'em!

 

[Alchemy129]

Just picked one of theses guys up tonight at my local feeders supply(he's floating in tha bag right now actually), Been wanting one for a long time but i didnt have a tank big enough for one until now, and you don't see them very often in stores. They had 3 and all of them had very differnt color tones so i went with the middle one. I hope he does ok, I'll keep you posted on how he does in my planted 65 w/ a few pieces of driftwood. the lady just reached in with her hand and picked him up and sat him gently in the bag, he never moved or freaked out or anything, very laid back fish. By the way he was only 6 bucks.

 

[janek]

I have one now for 6 months. I am not sure why people have problems with them at all. He eats all the algae like crazy, surivived heavy dosing of levasole and is always fine after 40% water change every week (some say they are sensitive to water changes). The fish is really unusual looking and can't really swim well spending most of its time sucking the glass or cleaning leaves on broad leaf plants. What is weird is that I never spotted him sucking on driftwood for some reason.