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Fast fact sheet on Panaque sp.
Biotope: Rio Orosa. Peru. This specimen was
collected – close to Madre Selva Biological Preserve Station -
during my Amazon Trip in August 2000. The fish can be found feeding
at night on floating logs at Madre Selva.
Tank: Can’t give, at the moment, any
suggestion. The fish arrived in Italy at a REALLY TINY size (let’s
say 1 cm or 0,5 inch) and despite the fact it is growing at quite a
good rate, I can’t even speculate, at the moment, the size he’ll
get in the future. After having been quarantined, it’s housed in a
360 lt tank (97 Us gals).
Water chemistry: All the rivers of the
Amazon Basin are known for their soft (acidic) water and Rio Oriosa
is, by no means, different. I keep pH around 7.0 (possibly lower)
and do my best to avoid aquascaping the tank with items that could
raise the “salt” (calcium and the alike) percentage in the water
... See the complete list of surveyied species for more details on
water chemistry.
Spawning: I have one (juvenile) specimen, at
this time … furthermore, spawning loriicarids is said to be a
REALLY tricky matter. Elsewhere in my tanks, I’m trying with a
group of wild Ancistrus: no luck at all! Up until now …
Food: Not at all picky. Feeds on
tablets, flakes/pellets fallen at bottom, bloodworm and artemia
(frozen), fresh vegetables (not that much), and seems to chew
bogwood in the tank. In the beginning, it’s rather shy, then
things tend to go better …
Tank Mates: P. scalare (angels), Corydoras sp.
(cory cats), Apistogramma agassizi (apistos), plus characins and
other catfishes (all where collected in the same trip), he seems to
go on happily with everyone …
Addendum: I had a lot of contacts –
exchanging E-Mails and pics - with ichthyologists and Amazon
expediton experts (among them Mr. David Schleser and Mr. Jim Lovins,
the second one having been our “in field” guide) on this fishes,
which, in the end, resulted:
The fish is most likely an undescribed species of
Panaque from Madre Selva Preserve Station on the Orosa River, Loreto
- Peru.
Investigation on it’s
actual taxonomic position are in process. Any way, it looks, almost,
clear that this fish isn’t a Peckoltia (even if – at sight –
looks quite similar).
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