i was at a pet store today i noticed they had some upside down catfish would are these a good community fish i do have a bumblebee catfish who only pops out now and again thought one of those would bring life to the bottom any suggestions welcome

Upside down catfish......now these guys are a risky subject, i shall explain why:

USD cats in their TRUE form Synodontis Nigriventis are about 3/3.5 inches long easilly kept in small shoals, love protein foods such as blood worm and diced mussel as well as catfish pellets and algae wafers, mostly nocturnal and love to shelter in heavilly planted tanks. They are a perfect community fish for tanks 125 litres + in size!

The Asian USD cat Heterobagrus leucophasis is almost identical as a youngster, however there is a BIG difference, as in nearly 18 inch of monster catfish who will eat most things in your tank, although it is very RARELY sold by accident i have come across one in my area that came in as by catch in a pet store.

The Moustache catfish is another one that can pass itself off as an USD cat. I apologise as i dont know its latin name and a quick name search didnt turn it up but i can say thus: these guys get to about 8 inch in length, quite a quiet catfish that is diurnal and requires sedate tankmates, it is of the synodontis familly and its care is quite similar to synodontis eupterus. You can distinguish this from the true USD as a youngster as it prominant two parbels which are oh it UPPER (or is that lower in USD cats? :lol: ) is thick, about 3 times thicker than the rest of its barbels. If you do come across one of these you are very lucky and well worth buying as they are rarely imported!

Finally a common fish to come in with USD cats is Synodontis Eupterus, also known as the featherfin catfish. these guys are about 8/10 inches for males and 10/12 inches for females. Quite a peacefull catfish, but males wont tolerate other Male feather fins or other synos that look similar to featherfins. they do hangupside down to rest and search for food and the markings are fairly simialr to USD cats when they are jeveniles. this all changes when they mature and they adopt a spotted pattern and males have a striking finnage that is simply fascinating to see in the aquarium

Is the mustache in question Hemisynodontis membranaceus?

You may just have got it there! obviously if thats the case i got the familly wrong, but heck i cant remeber everything! ill have a quick sift thorugh planet catfish shortly and see what i can come up with, but this is a very good representation of the animal saw

That's where I searched. Google pulls it up quick on a common name search.

Thats odd, i googled for its comman name and got a load of dodgy pictures of old geezers with bad 'taches!

Try searching for "Mystus Leucophasis" for the Asian UDC, I have one of these in with a pair of large gold Severums, he's no trouble but you very rarely see him, had him 15 months grown from 2.5 inch to 8.5 and still growing !!!!!

Thank you john, it gets annoying with taxonmomic reclassification at times dosent it~? :laugh: but yeah that does turn out more info to research them in ^^

Good looking fish John!

unfortunately that isnt a pic of mine, he's never out long enough !!!! but he is his "Double"

thanks john :drunk: