The shovel nose catfish is a classical appearance in the hobby. Even in the most common aquarium shops you can find this species as juveniles with a length between 8 and 10 cm. These fish are very appealing when they are small, but one should reconsider an impulsive buy here because these fish can grow up to 55 cm. Also the shovel nose catfish is a social animal which likes to be surrounded by other shovel nose colleagues. If you want to take care of these fish for a long time you should think of housing them in a fish tank of around 800 liter volume and a minimum of 2 meter in length. If you are in the position to house these fascinating creatures this species is highly recommended. The aquarium can be planted and should be set up with many hiding places like bogwood and stones. Although S. lima comes from the Amazon and Orinoco River systems, water conditions are not critical and you can keep these fish in hard and soft water. You can house your shovel nose cats with other fish as long as they do not fit in their mouth because this is a predatory fish. Torpedo formed fishes are mostly not a good idea because these catfish grow very fast and one day they might fit in their mouth. Feeding this fish is no problem. They accept all available food, even flake food and pellets. These cats have the peculiarity of loosing their skin if they grow out of it like snakes do. This skin is most of the time not lying around in the tank for a long time because they eat it as well. About breeding in captivity nothing has been reported up to now. This might be difficult due to lack of large enough fish tanks. It also has been reported that in nature they wander to special breeding, places which makes breeding them in fish tanks very difficult, without giving them hormonal treatment. (Text & Photo: Thomas Weidner)
| Angaben zum Tier | |
|---|---|
| Herkunft | Bolivien, Brasilien, Ecuador, Peru, |
