I thought I would post some recent pics of my pride and joy Mr. Tinky aka "The Worm Butcher"

This is when I first got him around Sept-Oct last year:

His only 1-2 inches long


This is him now approx 1Foot long:




I have a 4 foot tank on layby at the moment and I'm hoping to move him there within the next couple of months

Cool pics selena685, you don't get to see them much in home aquaria because of how large they get (20" or more). I bet he'll really enjoy the new 4' tank. How long have ya had him?

I've had him for nearly 12 months. I really love this breed of fish. They are so beautiful and friendly. It's a shame that most of these fish die due to lack of knowledge and care by people. LFS do not advise people how big they can grow and that they are aggressive towards other species of fish.

I had a website up about how to care for these fish, but the server hosting my site is having an issue. I will see if I can reload it on the web again for people's reference

This is a very short video of him.




Not sure what the rules are when posting video links. It's on photo bucket so I hope that's ok. If not, Mods can PM me to let me know. I haven't posted in a while so I'm not up to date with some of the new rules or changes

Wow he sure grew up fast! Great pix and video--I don't recall seeing one of those guys before.

He is beautiful! What size tank do you currently have him in?

wow...that is a big change in size

nice fish

so what does he eat?

I keep him in a 2foot long 17inches wide and 2foot high tank at the moment. He will be moving to a standard four foot tank soon

He eats lots of stuff:

peas
worms
trutle food
cory food
shrimp/yabbies
insect larvae

Beautiful video.

Hope you can get your website back up soon. Its great that you can share your knowledge about this fish.

That is one beautiful fish! I loved the vid....really neat. Let us know when you get that website going! It would be cool to learn more about them.

Don't worry about posting the video here, Selena - you are good. And that is one beauty! And you can tell that he is friendly. He saw you there, and he starts begging for food. Hm, you think he is related to goldfish?

wow, he's gorgeous, and big, I've never seen these guys before, uh oh, uhm.......dont chinese algae eaters get somewhere around that size????

I just read that c. algae eaters can get 10 inches but usually much smaller, I kinda hope so, but i've also heard that they can grow to 30 inches I rescued a chinese algae eater from our school tank

this is what my guy looks like:

http://animal-world.com/encyclo/fresh/cypr...hinesealgae.php

he's about 3-4 inches long now

Thanks Andrea. He is very friendly and sweet, but only towards humans. He rips any other fish apart.

Hi Shamu23!

I have never had a Chinese Algae Eater. My T.Catfish will grow up to 45cm in an aquarium. They grow much larger in the wild though.

How long have you had your algae eater?

I've had him since summer break started, he was in our 5 gallon school tank, there used to be 2 but cause of the small tank the bigger one ate the little one , he has grown quite a bit since then, he's in a tub now, its somewhere between 20 and 30 inches long, and there's tetras in it, one of the tetras was also a school rescue

I went to the Melbourne aquarium on the weekend and I saw some Tandanus catfish, fully grown:



I better pay off that 4 foot tank I have on layby very soon