Farlowela or Royal Farlowella catfish

Subject: Farlowela or Royal Farlowella catfish Mon Feb 25, 2008 4:27 am

I'm thinking about getting one or more Farlowella catfish which come from Africa. They grow big enough to not get eaten by my gars at least for a while, up to 8 inches in captivity, and I read that they eat algae. Anyone have experience with these? They're kind of cool, are the color of a stick, and they actually look kind of like a stick.

Subject: Re: Farlowela or Royal Farlowella catfish Fri Feb 29, 2008 3:50 pm

I have no experience with this fish, but did some reading and it sounds like a very hard fish to keep. They are real neat looking fish, but not to sure how well they would fit in with your Gars. I'm only going by the little I have read since I have no experience with either type of fish. Here is a link to the info I read if you are interested:Farlowella catfish
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Subject: Re: Farlowela or Royal Farlowella catfish Fri Feb 29, 2008 6:04 pm

I do have a 6 inch pleco which looks somewhat similar. I was looking for ways to combat the brush algae when it comes back. What I'll do is take 14 inch arowana back to the store, put 6 inch tilapia into lake I found him in, remove rest of fish to a separate "quarantine" tank, and do the copper tx for a couple weeks. It's my only permanent solution.

Subject: farlowella Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:44 am

Just saw one of these at a fish store for the first time ever. It is 6" long and was suctioned on the glass like an algae eater. Kinda looked like a brown pipefish to me. Did not have long wiskers.
Don't see how it would not get eaten by gar.
Do gar eat their own babies? If not they may think its one of there own if it smells right.

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Subject: Re: Farlowela or Royal Farlowella catfish Sun Mar 16, 2008 4:31 pm

I've decided not to get one of these catfish. My common pleco which is about 6 inches long is enough of this kind of fish right now and it'll grow as the gars grow and shouldn't have any problems with them over time. I just returned my 14 inch arowana to the store and the rest of the fish in the 100 gallon are happier for it because it was an angry bully, ate too much, and scared the rest of my fish. Now instead of the F gars staying at the bottom and only coming to the surface to gulp air they're spending more time in the middle regions of the tank. I also took a 5 inch tilapia male from my 20 gallon and put him into the big tank and he's having fun with the now 7 inch female tilapia. They're digging holes and doing they're courtship thing. My F gars have acquired a taste for freeze dried krill now too. The brush algae doesn't seem to be growing back thankfully. I've been diluting the copper sulfate I added a couple weeks ago and I don't think it did anything anyway. It was that there was too much crap in the gravel, and after I did a really thorough cleaning and I've been keeping the pH around 7.0 through more frequent water changes and I have Phoscheck in my filter I don't see any new growth of that algae. I just have a little green algae growing and my pleco is eating most of it. All seems to be well now and I'm seeing the plants start to grow back nicely. I like feeding my fish krill as it is hard to over feed with that. It is a low density food that has a lot of empty space in it compared to Hikari carnivore sticks. The sticks are very dense and swell up after getting wet and the fish can easily over eat that kind of food and I don't want to over feed. As for F gars having babies: I don't think it's been done in aquariums before.

Subject: Re: Farlowela or Royal Farlowella catfish Tue Mar 18, 2008 5:51 pm

I just finally looked at the link on the Farowella catfish you provided Celticwraith and it's a great bit of info. Some people bought theirs at Walmart!!!!! It seems like a pretty cool fish and great for a tank set up with sticks for them to blend into, but as I have a number of fish that will already outgrow my 100 gallon within a year it's probably best if I don't add any more fish to my 100 gallon. I just started a 35 gallon long tank which will be for small fish and shrimp. I miss fresh water shrimp. I had some that were 3 inches long not counting the antennae and my gars ate them unfortunately, so as soon as the fry in my new tank get big enough to not be shrimp food I'll get some more. My common Pleco fits the role a F catfish would occupy and the gars don't seem to want to eat it. They like the color orange in particular.

Subject: Re: Farlowela or Royal Farlowella catfish Tue Mar 18, 2008 5:57 pm

Glad you found it had good info and was of use, there are a lot of things with fish keeping I don't know and some times just looking for info and posting it is the best way for me to help.
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Subject: Farlowella Sun Apr 06, 2008 11:06 am

Went to FishProfiles.com to check some water hardness profiles that they might provide on my fish. A profile on Farlowella was on there. They had nothing for compatability though.
I would just check the water and size parameters and go for it.