- ., The Journal of the Catfish Study Group (UK) ihen t octurna/ Pred racking W. k atory st a es rateg Yot Pis . Cl\forou s catfish FactSheet· H . YPancistrus Zebra atus \n R\o NanaY f corydoras atroperson The home o Open show results Convention 2006 Information Volume 6 Issue Number 4 December 2005 CONTENTS 1 Committee 2 From The Chair 3 Tracking Wakes: The nocturnal predatory strategy of piscivrous catfish 8 PIMAFIX an experience with an antifungal remedy AW Taylor 7. FactSheet: Hypancistrus zebra 11 What's happening in Brazil Hans Geog Evers 15 Philip Henry Gosse AW Taylor 16 The home of Corydoras atropersonatus in Rio Nanay BArt Farstad 18. Open show results 23 Convention information 28 Map of new meeting venue - Darwen 29 And then there were three Bill Hurst Articles for publication in Cat Chat should be sent to: Bill Hurst 18 Three Pools Crossens South port PR98RA England Or by e-mail to: [email protected] with the subject Cat Chat so that I don't treat it as spam mail and delete it without opening it. car cHar December 2005 Vol 6 No 4 HONORARY COMMITTEE FOR THE car,llslil sr••r ea••• I ••I 2005 PRESIDENT FUNCTIONS MANAGER Trevor (JT) Morris Trevor Morris trevorjtcat@aol. corn VICE PRESIDENT Or Peter Burgess SOCIAL SECRETARY [email protected] Terry Ward [email protected] CHAIRMAN lan Fuller WEB SITE MANAGER [email protected] webmaster@catfishstudyg roup. erg VICE CHAIRMAN/TREASURER COMMinEE MEMBER Danny Blundell Peter Liptrot [email protected] [email protected] SECRETARY SOUTHERN REP Adrian Taylor Steve Pritchard [email protected] S. Pritchard@btinternet. corn MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY CATERING DEPARTMENT Julian Dignall Mr & Mrs Morris [email protected] CAT CHAT EDITOR SHOW SECRETARY Bill Hurst Brian Walsh [email protected] showsecretary@catfishstudyg roup. erg REFERENCE LIBRARIAN ASSISTANT SHOW SECRETARY Bob Barnes Ann Blundell SCIENTIFIC ADVISER AUCTION ORGANISERS lsaac lsbrOcker Roy & Dave Barton CAf' ClllAf' The Committee of the CSG (UK) would like to thank the following companies for their support in the production of this journal Aquarian • Arcadia • Tetra • King British • Waterlife • Algarde • lnterpet Publishing • JBW, Darwen • SAS, Bolton •Pier Aquatics, Wigan • Midland Waterlife, Bromsgrove • Henley Water Gardens • Pets Parade • CArCitAr From the Chair The last three months have been somewhat hectic and an advantage over us Brits in that most of your homes has involved quite a bit of travelling on my part. The have basements, just the mention of a basement only meeting I managed to take part in was the Open sends me green with envy. On my travels I have seen Show & Auction, although because I was officiating in many incredible basement fish rooms, but the ultimate a judging capacity I didn't have any involvement in the must surely be this one I visited while on my recent in auction itself, save for entering a few bags of my Norway and included this indoor pond and a well surplus fish. The maintained 54 tank show itself rack system. seems to be getting better Moving on to a and better every couple of important year, not only events in our are the numbers calendar, the first of of entries on the which is the AGM on January 15th and increase, but the overall quality of contrary to common the fish is belief, if you turn up improving, you won't making judging necessarily get lumbered with a job ever more to do, unless of difficult. lt just course you feel that you have something to offer and goes to show how dedicated Catfish keepers are when want to become an active member and help maintain it comes to looking after their charges. the longest serving Catfish group on the planet. And As I mentioned in the last issue my travelling has taken most importantly it is also the time when you have your me across the pond yet again, this time I missed the say, tell us what you would like to see happening, or October meeting to travel to the state of Michigan the things that you don't like. where I gave a couple of talks to the South Michigan Second on my list is the CSG Convention; this is our Aquarium Society in Kalamazoo. I just love these trips number one event of the year and takes place in where I have the opportunity to meet like minded February. As you will all be aware the 2006 event is people, meet old friends and see how fish keepers in undergoing a major transformation in that it has other parts of the world keep and look after their changed from a one-day event to a full weekend, fishes. Quite often there are new ideas and techniques starting on Friday evening of the 17th February through being used that I end up trying, many of them are quite Sunday the 19th. I am sure the event will be a huge unique in the way that they have evolved, many of success; everything is now in place, speakers, them deserve description for their innovation, perhaps convention room, program, even the menus for the there's space within these pages for such designs and convention diners have been set. To ensure you are ideas. On this particular trip I saw a warm air heating not disappointed it would be advisable to book your system for a fish room, where a thermostatically tickets early to ensure your place, advanced bookings controlled fan blew warn air ducted from a central mean that half the seats have been already been filled heating system. Needless to say this was the already. With members already committed from the innovation of a gas-heating engineer. USA, Germany and Norway we are heading for a truly Then while many of you were at the autumn auction in international event. I am really looking forward to November snapping up bargains, I was away talking meeting many of you in person. catfish in Norway and seeing how aquarists there do In the mean time happy fishkeeping. their thing. Both in the USA, Norway and I dare say many other parts of the world aquarists definitely have lan Fuller 2 CAfCHAf December 2005 Vol 6 No 4 Tracking wakes: The nocturnal predatory strategy of piscivorous catfish Kirsten Pohlmann*, Frank W. Grassotl:, and Thomas Breithaupt*§ *Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany; tBoston University Marine Program, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA 02543; and ~Department of Psychology, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY 11210 Edited by Theodore H. Bullock. University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA. and approved April 17, 2001 (received for review January 16, 2001) Swimming fish leave wakes containing Materials and Methods hydrodynamic and chemical traces. These traces We used a video-based infrared-illuminated system, mark their swim paths and could guide predators. maintaining both prey and predator in visual blackout We now show that nocturnal European catfish conditions and allowing us to make three-dimensional (Silurus glanis) locate a piscine prey (guppy, evaluations of their swim paths. This system consisted Poecilia reticulata) by accurately tracking its three· of a glass test aquarium (120 cm 0 60 cm, filled to a dimensional swim path before an attack in the height of 40 cm) illuminated by infrared back lighting. absence of visible light. Wakes that were up to 10 s The infrared used was in the 810-950-nm range (max­ old were followed over distances up to 55 prey· imum at 870 nm), which is outside the range of body lengths in our setup. These results absorption of the visual pigments of fish (11 ). Catfish demonstrate that prey wakes remain sufficiently conditioned to react to visual stimuli do not react under infrared illumination, confirming that they cannot see in identifiable to guide predators, and to extend infrared (K. Pohlmann, personal observation). Fish considerably the area in which prey is detectable. behavior was recorded on digital video by using two Moreover, wakes elicit rear attacks, which may be IR-sensitive cameras from different directions. The two more difficult to detect by prey. Wake tracking may recordings were synchronized accurately to the frame. be a common strategy among aquatic predators. Guppies (total lengths 2.0-5 .1 cm) were chosen as prey for their slow and clumsy swimming behavior and When an animal swims, chemical and hydrodynamic for their low tendency to swim or rest close to walls. stimuli persist in its wake for some time after it has left Guppies use undulatory and push-and-coast the vicinity (1, 2). Previous studies on predatory fish swimming . The wakes caused by both of these using olfactory or mechanosensory cues to localize swimming modes are well described (2, 12, 13). Four moving prey are few in number and indirect (3, 4). different catfish were used as predators, total lengths Most studies on predator-prey interactions in fish have 20-25 cm . They were accustomed to feeding on live used predominantly visual predators under well lit piscine prey. conditions (5). The niches of many piscivorous fish, however, require them to hunt at night or at depths Each trial started after the catfish had been acclimated where the limited penetration of solar, sidereal, or in the experimental tank for at least1 hin darkness. The lunar illumination limits the utility of visual senses (6). experimental room was entered through a double We hypothesized that in these circumstances, wakes curtain to ensure total darkness and one individual left by prey fish are used by predatory fish to detect guppy was added with a small amount of water (<50 and track their prey in three dimensions, analogous to ml) into the middle of the experimental tank.