Meetan catfish

Care at a glance

Overview

This is an unfussy, rust-toned Burmese catfish of about 15 centimeters. Keep it singly or as a single pair, as it is a solitary fish rather than a shoaler. It is mostly nocturnal and mostly peaceful, but like other bottom bagrids it will eat any tankmate small enough to swallow, so pair it with robust, medium-sized fish and skip tiny species. Give it wood and rockwork to hide among by day and open floor to forage over at night. It takes most sinking foods readily, including pellets, wafers, frozen bloodworm, and pieces of prawn. A tank of around 250 liters with cover and gentle flow suits it.

In the wild

It is native to Myanmar, in the Irrawaddy and neighboring river drainages, living in slower reaches over soft beds. A tank that suits it has a sand or fine gravel substrate, driftwood, rocky caves, and moderate water movement. Keep the temperature warm at 23 to 27 C and the chemistry soft to neutral, around pH 6.0 to 7.5. It is hardy and easygoing about water as long as conditions stay clean and stable, but it always wants somewhere shaded to retreat.

Good to know

Mystus rufescens is a bagrid catfish, family Bagridae, reaching about 15 centimeters. Its name, rufescens, means becoming reddish, for its rust-washed bronze coloring. It was first described from Meetan, a locality in the Tenasserim region of southern Myanmar, which is where its common name comes from. It is a nocturnal, bottom-oriented river fish, and its breeding is not recorded in aquariums.

Did you know

Its common name has nothing to do with a market: Meetan is the place in the Tenasserim region of Myanmar where the species was first collected and described.

Common questions

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