pim catfish

[sarah-j]

I have a Pimelodella angelicus catfish and I have had him for about a week and a half. For this time he has stayed at the bottom of the tank and become active at night however today I have noticed he has been scouring the tank, swimming backwards and forwards and looks like he is investigating. Is this normal behaviour? i was thinking he may have settled in and might just be getting used to the tank. any ideas?

 

[Bloo]

It's totally normal ! Mine zooms up and down the tank day and night. So just make sure that you have a clear "swimming path" free of obstacles.

 

[sarah-j]

phew thanks for that. he must be strating to like his surroundings. he seems to be getting on okay with my albino catfish they seem to spend a lot of time together will he get on with most fish? I have palty's, swordtails, neons.

 

[Bloo]

ah slight problem with the neons you might find the disappear for unknown reasons. The reason will be your Pim ! No small fish are safe as they grow larger. You might need to think of a plan for either party. However the Platies & Swords "should" be OK.

 

[sarah-j]

well the neons I have are jumbo neons they were my originals. however we bought more neons from another lfs and they are normal neons and he ate two of them. we still have one small neon left. the others i think are too big. we did not know they were jumbo neons at the time but they are larger than normal.

 

[digital_run]

Keep him well fed and you shouldn't have a problem with missing fish. But theres always the chance when you mix small fish and carnivore catfish. If you have the tank space maybe you can think about getting some fellow pims in there for him. HIH a little

DR

 

[CFC]

jumbo neons are just full grown normal neons, some lfs just call them jumbo neons because very few people are able to keep neons alive long enough to actually grow them to that size themselves. A full grown pictus will eat any fish under 3 inches long, its not a case of if its a case of when, your neons are on borrowed time unless you remove them or the pictus cat from the tank.

BTW Pimelodella angelicas is a invalid name for the "angelicas" morph of Pimelodus pictus http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=41743

 

[Bloo]

Sarah, on second thought, to tell you the truth, I’d actually advise that you think very carefully about your pictus. You have a 68 liter, so definitely no room for any more pictus. And from what I can remember from your previous posts, you’ve had a few teething problems (as most people in fact do when they start off), and you still have a very new tank that’s very heavily loaded (unless you’ve lost some more fish recently). But you really need to make a plan now for the long-term life of your fish.

 

[sarah-j]

we are hoping to rehome either the neons or the pim. it really depends he is pretty much full grown now, about 5" is that right? and he seems to have plenty of space to swim around in. we will obviously upgrade our tank eventually but i feel better knowing thats he is in a bigger tank than where we got him from. which must have been about 10 gallons or less.

 

[sarah-j]

Hey CFC, I had a look at your link and the photo of the catfish is that full grown and to scale? my catfish spots are smaller and closer together than the one pictured. Could my one be the columbian variation. The lfs where I got him were not very informative and i wont be going back to them after losing a betta due to their lack of proper info at time of buying him. so much conflicting advise is really confusing and annoying.