Just a "tribute" to one of the fishes I have once kept and lost/sold/given away.....
ABA-ABA ; gymnarchus niloticus(click to view info)
An amazing electric fish that is related to electric catfishes ( a 6-yr old electric cat is still in my living room) and electric eels but only produces enough for navigation purposes. It's puppy dog-like frontal face and graceful fins really masks its killer instinct and monster size of a potential 5-feet length when full grown in the wild! Which other fish kills armoured catfishes (plecos) half its length and twice its girth ?? killed two 4-inches plecos when it was just barely 8 inches...since then it has been in solitary confinement.
Grew to 50cm in my 60cm tank...It was my only case of mistreatment of a fish as it just grew too fast and I was just about to seriously upgrade it to a bigger tank as I was about to shift homes... A 3-times weekly water change was necessary to maintain it and a delay of one such water change let to me returning home to its corpse floating in the tank...hated myself for it ! It was also a bad decision to get it in the first place, breaking responsible fishkeeping rule No.1 -- NEVER BUY / ATTEMPT TO KEEP A FISH LARGER THAN U CAN HOUSE WHEN ITS FULLY GROWN. And my aba-aba hadn't even reached 50% of its potential captive size !
Note that predator fishes seldom exceed 80% of their potential sizes in the wild..given the size of the water body that they are found in the wild, added to the other factors of a varied diet of potential prey and how we usually don't overfeed them for fear of the filter system collapsing under their huge appetites and thus huge waste outputs.
One fine day should I have the means ($$) for a huge tank, this fish would definitely make it to the top 3 on my list of must-keep fishes once again...
