Fish Care Description

Freshwater

The Twig catfish or Farlowella acus gets its name from its colour and long thin shaped body which has the appearance of a stick or twig; this is useful camouflage in the wild from any predators.

The Twig Catfish has a long brown body with a very long thin pointed snout. They are quite difficult to keep and not really suitable for beginners.

The Twig catfish is native to South America and Venezuela and can grow up to 7 inch in length.

Housing

The Twig catfish should be kept in a minimum tank size of 30 Gallons of Soft to Medium water with a ph of (6.5-7.3) These catfish are very sensitive to large amount of water change so to be on the safe side only change a quarter of the tank water each time.

The temperature should be (7.0-7.7) the tank can be planted with lots of leafy plants as the catfish will clean the algae from the leaves without doing any damage. They should also have a piece of wood on the bottom of the tank to graze upon to help with their digestion.

They are very shy gentle fish and live happily with most other fish of a similar nature. When first placed into the aquarium they tend to hide and do not move around the tank a great deal and because of their camouflage they are difficult to spot when hiding among rocks and driftwood, but after a few days they will adjust and happily swim around the tank

If you have a tank with a lot of algae then a couple of Twig catfish will have it looking like new within a day or two as they are excellent algae eaters.

Feeding

These catfish are middle to bottom dwellers and like to feed from the bottom of the tank, they prefer a vegetable diet of zucchini, spinach, romaine lettuce, cucumber, boiled peas and algae wafers. They are not greedy eaters and being of a shy nature may miss out on food that is quickly eaten by the other fish in the tank, make sure to keep an eye on them at feeding times so they don’t miss out.