Syndontis Petricola

[frankie21]

I have a 6ft long 125gal tank with Parrot Fish, Severums, Silver Dollars and Syndontis Multi's living peacefully. I decided to buy 2 petricola's in hopes that it will help make the syndontis multi more active. I saw all the catfish a little more so I was getting excited. I was so happy I figure what the hell they are so beautiful I would add a couple more petricolas. 2 days after I added them I saw 2 of my silver dollars were beat up and fish were acting kinda funny. I put the silver dollars in hospital tank medicated them and ran off to work. Later I received a call from wife the petricola's were swimming next to the other fish and biting them up.

The 2 new petricola were hell raisers to my sweet little tank. When I got home I removed the immediately and took the back to LFS. By the time I removed them I think all the fish were damaged in some way or another.

I was curious if anyone has heard of Syndontis Petricolas attacking any fish before. I read that they can be aggressive/territorial with other bottom feeders.

 

[synodontismultipunctatus]

they rae normaly very peaceful when kept in larger groups...

how much did you pay for them ... ? because if it wa anything under 25 pounds its possible they were hybridised, hybrids are unpredictable and can be problematic sometimes. i had a few issues with multipunctatus agression recently ... but the fish in question... a hybrid amoung my wild caughts... i hate keeping it but i dont want to send him back into the trade.. its not fair on other keepers i guess..
you could try upping the numbers of multies and petricolas so you have a larger group.. the aggro will be spead between them instead of the other fish..

its strange though because as i saids.petricola are generaly peaceful ... it could be numbers.. it could be hybridisation... it could also be that you have alot of males, or one male and lot of females and he gets cocky.. LOL but yeah i try to keep a 1:1 male female ratio to keep bullying down

hope this helps

 

[frankie21]

Tank consists of
3 Red Spotted Severums
1 Golden Severum
3 Parrot Fish
6 Silver Dollars
2 Multi's

The tank had no bullying at all very peaceful. I then started adding the petricolas the first 2 went fine for 2 weeks without any problems but when I added 2 more that's when all hell broke loose. They all 4 came from the same group he purchased at one time and they were in a tank with other smaller fish then mine. I have tons of hiding places and room so it's not like they were on top of eachother.

They all came from a LFS that I know as reliable and should of been fine fish. I did return them to him and got full money back. Now I am back to orig fish and trying to get them all back to health and stress levels down on the tank. They all have some kind of fine damage or something wrong with them and they only experienced 48hrs or less with them.

 

[toddnbecka]

The only problems I've had with my group of petricola were 2 males getting their fins and barbels chewed short by others in the group. Apparently too many males (did have 9, now 7, no more issues) among the group. I moved those 2 into another tank, their barbels and fins grew back, and I swapped them off to someone else.
I actually had the same issue with a group of 7 multipunctatus, 2 were getting beat up and had to be moved out. They get along quite well now. I found this wee #28### in their the night before last:

 

[frankie21]

Hmm I wonder if something like that happened in my tank but instead of attacking each other they attacked all my other fish and nearly destroyed a couple of them.

The only problems I've had with my group of petricola were 2 males getting their fins and barbels chewed short by others in the group. Apparently too many males (did have 9, now 7, no more issues) among the group. I moved those 2 into another tank, their barbels and fins grew back, and I swapped them off to someone else.
I actually had the same issue with a group of 7 multipunctatus, 2 were getting beat up and had to be moved out. They get along quite well now. I found this wee #28### in their the night before last: