Vulture on Vulture Aggression

[Fish Tank Travis]

Hey guys, as some of you already know, I have two vulture catfish in my 220. One is about 14” and the other is 15-16”. I have had them for close to two years now and I got them when they were about 4-5” long. They have been completely fine thus far and have not been aggressive towards each other or any of the other fish in the tank. However, I fed the fish yesterday and then noticed quite a bit of splashing around in the tank throughout yesterday and last night. When I checked on them this morning, the smaller of the two looked like this:

I watched the fish for a little bit and whenever the bigger one got near the smaller one, it instinctively begins attacking the top fin of the smaller one. I’m not sure if this is a normal dominant behavior, or if it is attracted to the blood from the current wound. The smaller one does run and gets away a lot of the time, but it is definitely stressful for it.

Have any of you had any experience with anything like this?

If this keeps up, I will have to rehome on of them. This brings me to my next question, if I have to rehome one of them, should I rehome the bigger one or smaller one? The bigger one is still not aggressive to any other fish, just the smaller vulture.

thebiggerthebetter

 

[Rocksor]

the bigger the better

 

[EntoStentor]

thebiggerthebetter thebiggerthebetter the more the bigger the better the better

Let's spam him with notifications!!!

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

No need to I don't like spam like any sane person. Nor is it reasonable to expect that I will MISS any thread in the forum where I reside 99% of the time. Use common sense and Occam's razor, if you will.

My vultures do bear some damage from time to time, or actually most of the time at least one or two of them look like they had been in some action. I never knew if this was inter- or intra-specific. I assume at least some of it is inter-specific, that is vulture on vulture. Two has always been said to be a risky number even for gregarios fish, who still establish hierarchy and enforce it. I don't have enough vulture experience nor knowledge of the experience of others to hypothesize what can happen next with your pair. I personally probably would take the risk and let them be, even though 220 gal eventually will prove to be too small for them, if not already. I know you have had a pretty good run with them, Travis. I am not criticizing.

 

[Fish Tank Travis]

No need to I don't like spam like any sane person. Nor is it reasonable to expect that I will MISS any thread in the forum where I reside 99% of the time. Use common sense and Occam's razor, if you will.

My vultures do bear some damage from time to time, or actually most of the time at least one or two of them look like they had been in some action. I never knew if this was inter- or intra-specific. I assume at least some of it is inter-specific, that is vulture on vulture. Two has always been said to be a risky number even for gregarios fish, who still establish hierarchy and enforce it. I don't have enough vulture experience nor knowledge of the experience of others to hypothesize what can happen next with your pair. I personally probably would take the risk and let them be, even though 220 gal eventually will prove to be too small for them, if not already. I know you have had a pretty good run with them, Travis. I am not criticizing.

Yeah, I knew the 220 would be kind of tight. I do enjoy them a lot. They are one of my favorite looking catfish. I’ll keep an eye on them and see if things get worse. I will rehome one of them if it comes to that.

 

[celebrist]

or do what victor did and get a couple 4500's

 

[Fish Tank Travis]

or do what victor did and get a couple 4500's

Lol, I’ll have to add the cost of a divorce into that purchase.

 

[Fish Tank Travis]

So, the aggression is much less today, but the bigger one will still take a nip at the smaller one if they happen to run into each other. I am going to be doing a water change tomorrow and I’m hoping that will kind of reset this aggressive behavior because I will have the tank completely drained and the driftwood will end up shifting around. I’ll let you all know how that goes. It’s weird though that the bigger vulture is only interested in biting at the dorsal fin. It hasn’t really hit it anywhere else. The dorsal fin on the smaller one has taken a beating though. Here are some updated pictures of poor guys dorsal fin now:

 

[celebrist]

Ouch

 

[moe214]

I’d agree with TBTB having two is probably the issue. Always want an odd number.