IME,catfishes lack personality,is there any catfish that seems to have personality,most of the i see swim aimlessly,eating anything that comes near,if there is any smart catfish out there,it would be great,any suggestions?
I had a needle catfish that would appear if I sat in front of the tank. It was his way of begging for food. He would also grab onto my finger and be pulled around the tank. I rather like my banjo cats too. They are so passive and lazy i have to pick them up so I can clean the tank around them.
What?!?!?!?!?! Catfish will not eat CRAP!!! everything else. Try the syd. Petricola Catfish. Max size is 4 inches. There a nice fish. As for intelligence? I dont know. The MOST intelligent fish out there is the Elephant nose (biggest brain to body mass). Alot of the cichlids will come out and let you "pet" them...but that is a learned response to get food. The elephant nose is actually intelligent. Catfish...I dont?
I think people want different things from their catfish. Some like the unusual appearance of the Pleco's, some like the upside down type catfish and some like the normal swimming type of variing sizes. Some like small, some like big, some like huge. They vary so much that it seems there is a catfish for everyones taste.
My S angelicus have tons of personality. They are in my opinion very smart lively and active. Their home is a 125 with 5 of them in there. They range in size from 6 to 13 inches and are a real joy to watch. And as JamisonBWolsh has said they do not eat crap. They need to be fed a diet specifically for them just like any other fish.
I don't know if they're considered catfish or not, but I thought that a pair of albino corys I was in contact with were great fish and I enjoyed their presence a lot
The large predatory cats (red tails, TSN's, M. tigrinus, the brachyplatystomas, paulicea sp. etc.) are all pretty responsive. They are every bit as intelligent as cichlids.
Cichlids are very intelligent fish, alot of the quirks they display in captivity are not just learned responses for food, but are actually signs of intelligence.