Bar-tailed hoplo

Care at a glance

Overview

Keep them in a group of their own kind in a tank of 200 liters or larger, with medium to large robust tankmates rather than small or delicate fish. They are mostly peaceful bottom dwellers that spend their time rooting through the substrate for food, though they turn boisterous at feeding time and can out-compete or unsettle anything small and slow. Hold the water at 22 to 26 C with a pH between 6 and 7.5. Because they breathe air, leave a gap above the waterline and never seal the lid tight. Feed sinking pellets, frozen foods, and the occasional vegetable, and watch that faster surface feeders do not get to it all first. These are big, hardy catfish that should never be released into local waters, so check your local rules and rehome any you cannot keep.

In the wild

Bar-tailed hoplos come from the Amazon and Orinoco basins, along with the coastal rivers of the Guianas and northern Brazil. They forage along the bottom of slow, soft, often murky waters. Give them a tank of at least 200 liters with a long footprint so an adult has room to patrol. Use a fine soft sand substrate, which is much kinder on their long barbels than gravel, and anchor your hardscape with robust or floating plants since these fish dig and shift things around. Keep the water tropical at 22 to 26 C and a pH from 6 to 7.5.

Good to know

This is Megalechis picta, an armored catfish in the family Callichthyidae. Adults reach about 15 cm in the hobby. Like others in the group, it is a facultative air-breather, gulping atmospheric air at the surface and processing it in the gut. Males build a bubble nest and guard the eggs once they are laid.

Did you know

When the air above a stagnant pool runs low on oxygen, this fish just breathes the air above it instead. It darts to the surface, gulps a mouthful, and absorbs oxygen through the lining of its gut, which lets it survive in water that would suffocate most other catfish.

Related species

• 

  Spotted hoplo

  Megalechis thoracata

  5.9 in (15 cm)40 gal (150 L)64–82°F (18–28°C)

• 

  Cascarudo

  Callichthys callichthys

  7.9 in (20 cm)63 gal (240 L)66–81°F (19–27°C)

• 

  Hoplo catfish

  Hoplosternum littorale

  7.9 in (20 cm)40 gal (150 L)72–81°F (22–27°C)

• 

  Banded cory

  Scleromystax barbatus

  3.9 in (10 cm)40 gal (150 L)66–75°F (19–24°C)

• 

  Flagtail catfish

  Dianema urostriatum

  4.9 in (12.5 cm)40 gal (150 L)77–82°F (25–28°C)

• 

  Porthole catfish

  Dianema longibarbis

  3.9 in (10 cm)26 gal (100 L)75–82°F (24–28°C)