Pro's and Con's of Giraffe Cats

[Delock]

Please inform me...I was going to buy one but have one at my job I will relocate instead....but I need more info.

[J-WS6]

Re: Pro's and Con's of Giraffe Cats

Pro's:

- They siphon/stir up your sand
- Clean up left over food
- Cool to look at, adds character to your tank

Con's:

- They'll eat your fry
- Eventually outgrow your tank, but in your case it would take longer seeing as you have a 330 gallon..

They're pretty docile fish. There's also two variants, lake and river. Rivers are more common, less expensive and usually arrive a little bit smaller. The Lake giraffes have a lighter skin tone with more profound brown spots, not as many as the rivers. These are a bit more expensive and arrive larger in size. Alex usually carries both. The scientific name is Auchenoglanis Occidentalis.

[geoff_tropheus]

Re: Pro's and Con's of Giraffe Cats

Con's

Big and Ugly...kinda like someone I know...
Always stirring up the place...kinda like someone I know, sand getting into filters - Dont have a sand substrate?
Big mouth eats anything will fit into it.

Pro's
African Catfish are cool

[imagirlgeek]

Re: Pro's and Con's of Giraffe Cats

We have 2, and I can only speak for these guys because apparently ours are different.

Neither one has ever eaten fry.  

One is about 25" and lives in a 240g.  (Hoover)

One is pushing about 20" and lives in a 210g.  (Junior)

Hoover doesn't like change.  If we change the rocks in the tank, he gets freaked out for a few hours until he finds his new spot.  

Both of them must have a dark cave to hang out in.

Neither of them bother any of the other fish.  I've never seen either of them be aggressive (except when we had them both in the same tank, and Hoover was attacking Junior).  In fact, the feeders we put in for the Fronts generally try to hide under/around Hoover and he doesn't even care that they are all up in his face.  We've seen him accidentally suck up a feeder and he spit it out his gill.  :)

Yes, they move a lot of sand.  But they tend to only do it until they get their area setup.

They definitely have great personalities.  Both of ours will eat right from our hands.  And when Hoover gets freaked out, the one thing that calms him down is stroking his back.  Weird, I know...but it works.

[J-WS6]

Re: Pro's and Con's of Giraffe Cats

Con's
Big and Ugly...kinda like someone I know...
Always stirring up the place...kinda like someone I know, sand getting into filters - Dont have a sand substrate?
Big mouth eats anything will fit into it.
l

you done with that haterade?  

[J-WS6]

Re: Pro's and Con's of Giraffe Cats

oh i forgot to add...1 giraffe can do the same work that many smaller catfish could provide. in the end, i guess it all comes down to personal preference. i simply like think of mine as the janitor of the tank.

traci,

my friend had his giraffe in a 125 with a colony of tropheus that were breeding like crazy, and he watched his giraffe gulp some of the dumber, slower fry up whole!

[CichlidFan]

Re: Pro's and Con's of Giraffe Cats

I'm curious, do they leave a big "mess" in the tank, like large pleco's ?

CF

[J-WS6]

Re: Pro's and Con's of Giraffe Cats

i've had quite a few over the years and i never noticed any significant difference.

[imagirlgeek]

Re: Pro's and Con's of Giraffe Cats

I'm curious, do they leave a big "mess" in the tank, like large pleco's ?

CF

You mean, a lot of poo?  Not that I've ever seen.  :)

[imagirlgeek]

Re: Pro's and Con's of Giraffe Cats

my friend had his giraffe in a 125 with a colony of tropheus that were breeding like crazy, and he watched his giraffe gulp some of the dumber, slower fry up whole!

Wow!   8O  Maybe Troph fry are tastier than Front fry.  

[JandJ]

Re: Pro's and Con's of Giraffe Cats

I had a Lake giraffe that had to be relocated to a bigger tank when he started splashing water out of the tank and then started pushing the lids and lights off the top of the tank. He was in a 55 at the time and only about 8-10". At 12-14" He was moved into the 125L which had about 1.25" of dead space in the top, from the low overflow box.
This was a good thing because my giraffe enjoyed swimming as fast as possible back and forth in the front of the tank, which formed these monster waves that I could hear from upstairs. Then he decided that the return was a toy and would spend hours swimming as fast and hard as possible into the return stream, also causing enormous water displacement, not to mention bubbles and LOUD splashing noises. Had the tank not been acrylic, and therefore had a lip around the entire top edge, water would have been all over the flower and outside the tank. Despite all that, I loved that giraffe. He did eat my troph fry, but that was natural selection at it's finest. He kept the genetics in the tank in top condition! He had alot of personality.

In fact, when my Petro Trew went in the tank with him, he taught the Trew a few moves. The most memorable moment was when the giraffe started sucking up sand and pellets to eat, the Trew looked at him and looked at the pellets on the sand. Looked at the giraffe again, looked at the pellets rolling on the sand and suddenly opened his mouth wide and started shoveling the sand and pellets around. Eventually he figured out that he could just pick up the pellets and did not have to emulate the giraffe to get food, but for a few days the Trew shoveled sand around like a giraffe.
To this day, from a distance I can spy on the Trew in the 55 and watch him shovel sand around for no reason. It always reminds me of the day those two bonded and reminds me of the giraffe. He now has a good life eating hybrid mbuna fry in a LFS up in Eugene, Oregon.

The only other thing about giraffes one must keep in mind is that they do have spines in front of their dorsal, pectoral and anal fins. Not only can these pack a sting and cut flesh easily, they can get tangled in nets if they thrash about too much. I know one individual that got stung when he was pointing the spines out to someone else and his finger went numb for several hours.

[J-WS6]

Re: Pro's and Con's of Giraffe Cats

that was my finger man, lol. happened to me once when we worked at ultimate together.

[Delock]

Re: Pro's and Con's of Giraffe Cats

Con's

Big and Ugly...kinda like someone I know...
Always stirring up the place...kinda like someone I know, sand getting into filters - Dont have a sand substrate?
Big mouth eats anything will fit into it.

Pro's
African Catfish are cool

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[mrairportjunke]

Re: Pro's and Con's of Giraffe Cats

delock what do you do where yall have a big giraffe catfish?

[Delock]

Re: Pro's and Con's of Giraffe Cats

I have a 1000 gallon malawi/peacock tank at my job