Grrrrrr...caes Are Evil

[merry78]

I had a day off today (mmmm, sleep in), and as I lay in bed looking at my goldy tank, I saw a horrible thing...... My sucking catfish (I think they are CAEs), were hassling my Blackmoor, then *gasp of horror* sucked onto his side and munched on him!
I had read in this forum about CAEs doing this and held out hope in my tank for two reasons:
1. I wasn't sure of the id of my suckers
2. They are very small juveniles and had not done anything nasty before. (i only had them for about 2 months)
Needless to say, i jumped out of bed, called my lfs to see if they wanted them, and then had to strip down my tank to catch the little buggers.
They are gone now, my goldys had a water change and a bit of melafix, and are eating happily (although when are they not? )
Just had to post this to vent a bit of my rage, i have had these goldys for three years, they were the first fish i ever had (now i have several tanks and lots of fish) and they are very special to me. They survived my horribly small (but well maintained) tank for a whole year before i saw the light on goldy tank requirements, and all my other (tropical) tanks are ones that i bought for them to upgrade, kept them in for 6 months and then thought, gee, they could really use a bigger tank! I am right about to buy another...
If my goldy doesnt heal quickly i am going to go on an anti-CAE rampage! (not really, but i sure won't keep any ever again.

 

[black angel]

As juveniles CAE's are pretty easy going but once they start to mature they have a need to eat slime for some reason, and the poor goldfish are just too slow to get out the way.

If you do need an algae eater try a large snail.

 

[merry78]

yeah, i did have snails in with the goldys but they pecked the snails eyes off! As i also really like my snails, they are in my breeding tank now.
The goldys upgraded today to a 36"x15"x15" ( will 2000L/hr filtration) which i am very happy about, although i can barely see them in all that space it at least might make up for the 18L ( ) tank they were in when i first got them. They've been continually upgraded since, and this is their final big luxury home that they can (hopefully) grow into- if i haven't stunted them too much . Oh the evils of ignorance .
Think i will just try to keep the pollution down and the plants up and hopefully will have no need for an algae eater.
ps thanks dark angel!
edited (again) to add: just had to mod my filter (15xfiltration) to take a spray bar so it didn't blast my poor goldys out of the water! now they're happy.