Rita catfish

Care at a glance

Overview

Sold as an appealing little juvenile, this fish grows into a heavy, blunt-headed river giant of up to about 150 centimeters, far too big for any home tank, so it belongs in a public-scale system of thousands of liters or not at all. It is an aggressive predator that eats fish and crustaceans and is best kept strictly alone. Adults are strong and armored, and they need huge volumes of warm, clean water and a deep open floor. Feed meaty foods such as fish, prawn, and mussel. The small juvenile hides just how large and demanding this fish becomes, so it is really a fisheries and aquarium-of-record animal rather than a pet.

In the wild

It ranges across the great rivers of South Asia, the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra, and their estuaries, holding to deep, turbid channels over mud. It is a warm-water fish, comfortable across roughly 22 to 30 C, in hard-tinged water from near neutral to alkaline, around pH 6.8 to 8.0. Only a vast tank or pond could house an adult, floored with open sand or fine gravel and a few immovable structures. It even tolerates a little brackishness near river mouths.

Good to know

Rita rita is a bagrid catfish, family Bagridae, and one of the most heavily built members of the family, reaching about 150 centimeters with a broad bony head and strong, serrated spines. It was described by Francis Hamilton in 1822. Its name is a tautonym, with genus and species spelled the same. It is a long-established food fish across northern South Asia, and its breeding is not recorded in aquariums.

Did you know

Rita rita has been a food fish on the great rivers of South Asia far longer than the aquarium hobby has existed, and Francis Hamilton formally described it back in 1822.

Common questions

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