How big of fish can Pictus catfish eat?

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Q

Quo Vadis

Gambusia
MFK Member
Apr 12, 2014
912
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18
Wisconsin
I know they will eat anything that fits in their mouths, but I'm having trouble guessing how big an adult pictus' mouth will be. I your experience would an adult pictus eat an adult:

Peppered or bronze cory
Oto
Black Neon tetra (bigger than normal neons)
Serpae Tetra
Blue ram
Buenis Aires tetra

These are more just to get an idea of general sizes of fish that would become food!

Let me know what you have experienced!
 
A one inch defenseless fish can be swallowed by an adult pictus of ~5".

E.g., cories are not defenseless with their sharp spines. Neither are clown loaches, etc.

Barbs and other cyprinids are.
 
Are there any catfish with the qualities of pictus (active, outgoing) that sty smaller and wouldnt bother fish over an inch?
 
And hae you all had this exsperience personally? Because while I know this is true of most non-cory catfish, I read a lot of people say pictus arent that bad in this respect and wont usually go after anything over an inch and a half or so. So is what you said general catfish info (I am aware of this, I had a bumblebee catfish that would eat fish 3/4 his size!) Or specific to pictus?
 
QV: And have you all had this exsperience personally?
TBTB: No.

QV: Because while I know this is true of most non-cory catfish, I read a lot of people say pictus arent that bad in this respect and wont usually go after anything over an inch and a half or so.
TBTB: "aren't that bad" and "won't usually" means lower risk, not that this is impossible.

QV: wont usually go after anything over an inch and a half or so.
TBTB: agreed. As I stated, 1" would be in significant risk.

So is what you said general catfish info (I am aware of this, I had a bumblebee catfish that would eat fish 3/4 his size!) Or specific to pictus?
TBTB: In my case, general. From reading about pictus. Although I have kept scores of them but never with smaller fish. They were usually the smallest.
 
So they would almost for sure be ok with bronze or peppered corys, and large tetras, like BA tetras? I just won't stock the smaller fish if they won't work, but I already have the corys.
 
I had corries with mine and never had any issues with my 7 pictus with them. it's just small fish like neons and guppies for the most part do to the smaller size, that you have to worry about, even then I still had both in my tank with them and really didn't have to much of a problem, other than the odd one going missing once in a while.
 
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