# Catfish additions



## Ernie (Nov 23, 2008)

On the way back from DC and Baltimore the other day, I couldn't resist stopping at Elmer's Aquarium in Monroeville, PA (outside Pittsburgh) to scope out some new finned friends. It's so close to the PA turnpike, and, besides, I worked/drank my way through high school there. Had to visit some old friends. I went to the Aquarium Depot (ex Aquarium Center) in Randallstown, MD (Baltimore), but was tremendously disappointed in their selection compared to under the original owner. Anyway, some new additions:

_Corydoras metae
Corydoras davidsandsi
Corydoras axelrodi
Corydoras loxozonus
Corydoras arcuatus
Corydoras paleatus sail fin
Loricaria_ sp

None of these are realy that rare, but the loxozonus aren't seen very often in numbers. Just goes to show how hard it is to find good kitten fish in Chicago! The first four are all Colombian "skunk corys". They are very similar, but like night and day to the trained eye. Gotta figure out how to take good aquarium pix to share. I've heard of sail fin peppered Corys popping up as sports (rare, choice, chance occurrences) but apparently someone made a stable population of them. Never was able to diagnose the whiptail cats (Loricaria) from a live fish. Gotta wait 'til they're dead to look at the armor on the belly.


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## biothanasis (Nov 23, 2008)

You are keen on catfish, I see!!! Do you reproduce them??? All of them are beautiful (most Corydoras of your list are quite similar to each other) but the _C. loxozonus_ and _Loricaria_ surely lead the way!!!


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## Ernie (Nov 23, 2008)

biothanasis said:


> You are keen on catfish, I see!!! Do you reproduce them??? All of them are beautiful (most Corydoras of your list are quite similar to each other) but the _C. loxozonus_ and _Loricaria_ surely lead the way!!!



Another catfish nut? Loved Corys forever. I studied Corys in grad school with John Burns at GWU and Stan Weitzman at USNM in DC. Don't have the space to breed them, but used to stud some rarer species out on request. The way Cory collecting goes is you find just one of the really good species mixed in with a tank of common stuff. Not to brag, but I'm one of three or so people that ever touched a Cory filamentosus (known only from the type specimen). At one point, circa 1997, I had more than 70 living species of Cory cats. The original populations of "laser" aeneus (green and red versions) were heavily infected with a nematode gut parasite that tore through my collection no matter how I tried to isolate it.  The worms were huge- if you killed the parasite it would clog the gut and kill the Cory; if you didn't kill the worm, it would slowly starve the cat. 

-Ernie


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## biothanasis (Nov 24, 2008)

Not really ! I haven't tried anything yet, but I like watching them!!! I am sorry for the unfortunate event! Maybe a fresh start or a motive to grow sth else...


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## Ernie (Nov 24, 2008)

biothanasis said:


> Not really ! I haven't tried anything yet, but I like watching them!!! I am sorry for the unfortunate event! Maybe a fresh start or a motive to grow sth else...



The nematode disaster was 11 years ago. I'm over it now... mostly.  

-Ernie


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## NYEric (Nov 24, 2008)

Yum catfish and tapeworm fry!


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## Leo Schordje (Nov 24, 2008)

How about pickled in a firey hot chili suace - Lao Hmong style.


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## NYEric (Nov 24, 2008)

might kill the tapeworm eggs.


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## gonewild (Nov 24, 2008)

The jungle people in Peru boil them.

Once, the grandson of one of our collectors made lunch out of a weeks catch while grandpa came to town to tell me about the new Corydoras species he found. After I saw the sample grandpa brought me I sent my crew upriver to bring them in to the aquarium. On arrival all that was to be found was a smoldering fire and a pile of 600 Corydoras skeltons piled in the center of the kitchen table. The kid boiled them, sucked the juice out of each one and then ate the soup. To this day the only example of this species was the one grandpa brought to town as a sample. Grandpa just shrugged his shoulders and said the boy must have been hungry.


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## Ernie (Nov 24, 2008)

Yep, Corys and other armoured cats are cooked, peeled, and eaten like shrimp. Haven't tried them yet. 

-Ernie


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## NYEric (Nov 25, 2008)

Great story!


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