Wallago attu Catfish
Zeke the Fishgeek - Chattavegas (Friday, November 4, 2016)
I have been keeping oddball predatory fish in my aquariums for 30+ years now. The first time I saw these AWESOME fish in person was in 1991. A wholesale aquarium fish dealer had about 4-6 of them in stock, when I was there buying new fish for resupply, for the aquarium shop where I worked. Not even knowing what they were, I still bought them all. They ended up at my house in a 200 gallon tank that was 7'x2'x2'. I kept them all until late March of 1993. A freak snowstorm hit the Southeastern U.S. and killed them all due to lack of electricity to keep the water temperature high enough for them. It was nearly 25 years before I saw anymore offered in the aquarium fish trade. I managed to get a couple of these beasts at 1.5' long(yes...that's right, 1.5' & TINY!!!And so cool!)These Indian Catfish are still one of my top 3 favorite fish. I don't really understand the lack of availability and generally such a high price when you do see them offered for sale. They are an important food fish in their native range and are commercially grown by the thousands, just for that reason. You'd think a fish that's just as popular to eat in India, as the Channel Catfish is here in the U.S., would be VERY easy to obtain and import at a small fingerling size...but that's just not the case. These sleek opportunistic monster mouthed catfish with row upon row of large needle type teeth, that are backwards facing are just what you'd imagine...eating machines. I was able to get the 2 tiny baby Wallago attu that I found and bought a couple of years ago to take Hikari Massivore Pellets REALLY easily. I dropped a couple of the Hikari Sinking Carnivore pellets into the aquarium that I kept them in and...BAM! The little guys saw/sensed the movement of the pellets sinking towards the bottom of the tank, grabbed them immediately, and never looked back! These catfish are easily kept in a predatory fish community type tank. They will however attack and swallow whole ANY other fish species that is roughly 2/3 their size or less...Example- Wallago attu @ 10'+/- kept in the same aquarium as a Silver Arowana @ 7-8'+/-...equals fat Wallago attu. I had a 12'+/- Wallago attu eat a Yellow Bullhead Catfish that was a SOLID 8' and FAT. AFTER 2 DAYS OF DIGESTION, YOU COULD STILL SEE IT'S PECTORAL SPINES STUCK OUT AND LOCKED (LOOKING LIKE THEY WERE GOING TO POKE THROUGH THE SKIN ANY SECOND!) @ A 90 DEGREE ANGLE IN THE WALLAGO'S STOMACH!!! These fish get very tame and aren't picky at all about water conditions. I think if they didn't grow SO fast and SO huge...they'd probably be my favorite fish that I've kept in my aquarium. They are that cool. Move around the tank like an Arowana...but grow like a damn Red Snakehead or South American Golden Dorado. Seems like they grow an inch per day sometimes. My 1.5' baby W.attu was 18' after 7 months of Massivore Pellets and frequent large water changes. His existence ended abruptly during a thunderstorm while I was out of town watching a University of Tennessee football game. I had a nice thick, heavy, metal lid on the aquarium, but, just didn't realize how strong of a jumper that these fish really are. Unfortunately, I haven't seen them for sale anywhere since then. If you have a large(200 gallons)to giant sized aquarium(1,000+ gallons)...try out these gracefully swimming underwater missiles with thousands of needlelike teeth lining their huge mouth. You might just love them as much as I do, but other than the giant size factor, you won't regret your purchase. A most definite head turning fish, when housed in a very large display tank! Thanks...
|
All Categories
