Help with a coral catfish??

[Reefer94]

Anyone head of this thing? It's black with horizontal yellow stripes that run the length of it's body. Cute little fellow, thought about getting one for the reef. It is a sandsifter... that's the onlynegative that I've noticed.

Thanx..

[OodleyBoodely]

Here's a little info taken from one of my books for ya!

Coral cats-Plotosus lineatus- grows to about 13". Solitary cats tend to be very shy and reclusive. If kept in a small group they will usually swim about in the open in a school-especially when young.

Their spines are extremely poisonous, so, handle with care-or better yet, don't handle at all! Trap 'em or hook 'em if you gotta move 'em! I don't have any info on feeding, but, just guessing from the photo of the fish, I'd say they probably feed on small mobil inverts-shrimp, crabs, also, small fish. If you have the space for them, they should make good additions to a fish only community or a reef as long as you don't keep anything they could eat. HTH

[Reefer94]

Cool... 13" is pretty big! Anyone know how poisonous the spines are?

[rottn]

Hi Reefer94!

Stinging Catfish - (They sting for their supper.) Sometimes called coral catfish, these fish have highly venomous spines. Wounds from these spines may even be fatal in rare cases. Juveniles occur in dense ball-shaped schools over reefs and seagrass beds; adults are solitary and hide under ledges during the day.

This quote was taken from http://www.aqua.org/information/media/species1.html.

Also - check out the following link for more info...
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/p...21&pCatId=691.

HTH

[alf2]

Ive also read about these fish. They are cool looking when small but turn nearly all dark when adult. So they dont keep the cool strip look. I was looking into this fish too but then I heard how poison they were so that did it for me Thank you but no

[aquaticsdeptleader]

this is a fabulus fsh when it is young they actual swim in a mass and the the best way to keep is in a group of 4 or more wich leaves you with the problem of 4 or more 13" catfish that are pretty ugly when they get older like the fresh water irredescent shark best left where it is unless you have a very large tank