Advice is needed on sensitive 20" tig; split off into its own thread

[Asian Exotics]

Wow, those are some seriously nice looking tigs. I've seen your fishes on YouTube a good couple of times as both me and my kid loves tigs. You have a couple, I had 2, but sold off one to a friend when the arowana started to show some aggression to the tig (the arowana didn't for a good 8 months).

May I ask the experienced tig keepers here if Tigs are also prone to 'sudden death' issue that may be common to other shovelnose catfish?

Reason I'm asking is I have been keeping mine as a single species fish (there are 2 medium sized tinfoil barbs) in a 150 gal (I hope I got that right as we use litres in my part of the world, 560L) tank. I bought mine at 10 inches about a year ago and now it's 20 inches.

As it keeps growing, I had to keep changing or adding (by tying together) more driftwood for it to hide from even dim light. Finally decided to put together a hiding spot fit for a big fat adult tig, and took out the current driftwood.

But work needed me to be back in office, so I left for work and came back to see my tig frantically swimming all over the tank. So, I decided to put the previous driftwood back as I'm still waiting for the new hiding spot to fully cure as I used some silicone adhesive.

Then I realized, that may be another bad move as now it does not even dare to swim near the bottom after the initial first few times when it's feelers touched the wood, it'll swim right into the wall.

I know my tank is way too small for my tig, I do have another two tanks, but due to the shy feeding habits of my tig, I don't think mine is suitable to be transferred to the bigger tanks (which are both more than double in volume). Besides, my tig won't move when there are any light. Will only hunt when it's almost completely dark. Mine will also stop swimming and go to its usual resting place to rest once it is full, so, I kind of can't find any good reasons to move it to a larger tank really.

Mine is still swimming at near surface levels, and won't even go to half way in depth... kinda worried for it as it's my favourite fish. While I'm waiting for my newly put together hiding spot for him is curing. I attached a picture of the supposedly new home, and my apologies I didn't get to take a full picture.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Split off from my thread https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/...tystoma-tigrinum-15-in-4500-gal.682588/page-2

Tigs are not known to suffer sudden deaths for no good reason. Nor any other Pimelodidae that I know of.

I am surprise to hear of how sensitive and touchy your specimen appears to be. Tigs need no place to hide and they are usually tolerant of medium light, even more so of dim light. I am surprised by the behavior of your tig. I see no logical reason for it to be so alarmed and even seemingly afraid of its own good old driftwood. I don't get it why it is so nervous. What are the 150 gal tank's dimensions?

As for their preference to feed in darkness, I observe the same on my end too. In my case though, it doesn't have to be a complete darkness, very dim light is fine.

Larger tanks are always better, especially for such a large and growing fish. It needs space to swim and also appreciates good current. You need water volume for instant dilution of the ammonia and nitrite toxins. The bigger the volume, the better.

 

[Asian Exotics]

Thank you very much for your reply and I apologise for inserting it into your thread as I cannot start my own thread yet for being new here. Hope it didn't offend anyone there.

When I first had it in it's own dedicated tank, it was a bare tank and it kept swimming vertically, which I read means it is stressed. While it may be stressed to a new home, I noticed it immediately stopped doing that after I had a piece of water logged driftwood in for it to hide. Could be coincidence of time it got used to the new tank too.

Mine is tolerant or light as long as its eyes are under shadows by the driftwood. As to dim lights, I use those blue LED dim lights, my tig does move a bit in excitement but will not hunt unless the feeder happen to swim right in front of its mouth. The tig is excited because he probably knows blue dim light means just a few short hours away from all lights off including home spaces near the tank.

The dimensions of my tank are 58 x 22 x 31 inches (they are all internal glass measurements, not the whole tank). I presume all tigs will prefer feeding at dim or in my case very minimal light (closest lit lamp is approx 40 feet away).

Right now, my tig is still swimming almost only near the surface, but it isn't as frantic as it was yesterday night, so I'm more relieved and with your opinion that they aren't known to have sudden death, it's more reassuring. However, I do have a friend who kept the moonlight catfish (Flavican), he told me he gave up on Flavican because they kept dying or they'll have fractured bones at the snout. This is also the advise given by my two regular lfs.

As to the right size of tank, I'm more than happy to get a bigger one if it does swim around the tank as I really love the beauty and colours of mine. I do check regularly for water parameters using PH meters weekly or as close to weekly as I can, and ammonia, nitrite and nitrates too on a maximum once in 2 months, except when I notice any unusual behaviour like not eating. I have read on arofanatics, I think, that some keep it under all day bright lighting and eventually they will get used to it and take that as the new norm, but I personally don't feel it is right to do that. But that's just me. So, I did try for 5 days, and after 5 days of seeing my tig stressed, I decided to just let the fish be in an environment it's comfortable in, which is still a dark hiding spot with dim lighting. And my tig never loved the current since the day I bought it. There's a wavemaker in the tank, but I hardly had it on. I only turn it on if I notice debris on the other side of the tank.

While my tig sounds unusually fussy, I can maybe console myself that mine is special? I just hope it remain below the stress level that might endanger it until his new home is fully cured, then I can put it in as a good spot to hide plus some sand (from Amazon) too.

Oh, btw, I'm also using the new hiding spot because currently my tig always faces the front of the tank where it is just 2 inches from its current size. Not sure if that might affect its growth rate, but the new spot would encourage it to face the sides. I'm hoping this might trick my tig to think : don't worry, there's still more space to grow. Not sure whether it works. But currently due its personality to not swim unless it's almost total darkness and will not swim once he is full from meals, I'll put on hold of getting him to a bigger tank. I have inserted some pictures of the new hiding spot, I used an old chopping board as I believe it's a good medium to spread the weight of the rock and since they should be food grade, also safe for fishes. And a cable tie to secure the wood to the board at the other end. I had to add silicone adhesive to make sure my tig can't accidentally flick the rock against the glass with its tail should anything scare it.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

No problem whatsoever, mate. You are almost too nice of a guy. Now that you got 5 posts, I think you are able to start your own thread.

Swimming vertically is often or usually but not always done out of stress, my impression is (I may be wrong), it might be done for the lack of room too. So if I understood you right, when you say your tig "swims at the surface" you mean it is swimming on the side of the tank, vertically. You are right, I wouldn't like it either and be concerned as to why it is doing that.

I think it wasn't a coincidence that your tig stopped doing vertical swimming and went under the driftwood. It appears logical. Just because tigs in general need no cover, doesn't mean that your tig in your particular tank needed no cover. So many things in our hobby are poorly understood and unpredictable and vary wildly from tank to tank and keeper to keeper.

BTW, do you have any other animals in the house, like cats maybe? Cats sometimes can stress fish especially when owners are not looking.

So 22 inches is the tank's width and the height is 31 inch. This is not good dimensions for a catfish. They always benefit from larger footprint than depth. Another factor against your tig's overall comfort.

When a catfish is able to touch simultaneously two opposite walls of a tank with its barbels or with its barbels and tail or tail extensions, it tells the fish it is trapped, which leads to stress. I think this is the answer to your riddle as to why your tig acts so fussy.

Something must have happened to the old driftwood which you took out of its tank and then put it back in, that now it makes the tig uncomfortable. I suppose something was absorbed by the wood while it was out of the tank or sprayed on it. Could be a lubricant, or an aerosol cleaner, detergent powder / dust, or car exhaust, fumigation agent, etc. Maybe something was on the floor where you placed the wood and it got contaminated. It perhaps smells and tastes differently and badly / frighteningly to your tig now, which is why it reacts to it like that. Again, I am tossing darts in the dark as this is hard to explain. Maybe your dog or a cat marked it with its glands or peed on it. IDK. Only you may know. It's getting to be wild guessing.

Flavicans (old name) or dorado catfish are exceedingly skittish fish in captivity and 99.99% of them damage their snout from darting and hitting walls. Eventually suffering a brain injury and dying. Tigs are nothing like that.

The reason your tig may not like the current is because for a fish to deal with current and enjoy it, it needs to have enough room to maneuver freely and easily and position itself as it likes in the current. If it cannot do that, the current may be just a bit stressful for them.

Make sure the tinfoil barbs don't pick tig's enticing extensions that may look like worms to them.

Thank you for the photos. It is always fun to see what people do and how they do it

 

[Asian Exotics]

Thanks, mate. You're extremely generous on advise, compliment and of course, time. Greatly appreciate it. Hmmm, yeah, it didn't cross my mind that when it can touch both sides with its barbels and/or tail extension it could feel trapped. Makes sense to me. However, I do think he does take advantage of the smaller than it should be tank while hunting as I can sit very near the aquarium and he won't mind, or he can't even see me, not sure which one. He would spread his barbels at 90° and start his routine sweep all over the tank (all panels except the surface). And when he still can't catch anything but can feel fishes are there (I'm serious he can tell difference of the 2 tinfoil barb tankmates from smaller feeders which are also tinfoil barbs but maybe a different subspecies without the red fin), he would then change his strategy usually after 20 minutes of continuous sweeping. His plan B is also routine but his movement becomes highly unpredictable. Eg. He may be sweeping from one panel, but will suddenly swim to the opposite panel mid level or even near the surface, and continue his sweep there, and he's usually successful as the feeders that have been avoiding him weren't expecting that. I'm not sure if tigs do swim at mid level or higher, but even my kid haven't seen him do that before as it's usually past his bedtime when I turn off most lights. I wish I can show with a video, but his hunting only when almost completely dark behaviour makes it impossible without professional equipment.

My tig is not exactly back to normal yet, but I can see the stress level is much reduced, although the driftwood piece I put in is too small for him, he just wants his eyes shaded from light. Oh, btw, I doubt anything changed in the chemistry on the driftwood because I put them all in a pail and I have no other pets at home as a family member has sensitive nose especially to animal hair, I'm very lucky I like fishes instead. But I believe it is because his previous driftwood are actually a few different driftwood tied together. I was going for the mangrove roots theme, but it was disaster. Still provided good enough cover to my tig, but a very ugly cover nonetheless. Lol.

Oh, I'm not sure if it's right to say this, but the tinfoil barbs were initially put in to make sure the water parameters are fine (the mine canary), and were supposed to be the tig's food if the water is fine. It's just that Tigs are quite hard to come by and rare in my country, that I have to keep the tinfoil barbs for some months longer, so they aren't eaten yet by the tig. And no, the tinfoil stays clear of my tig. They don't go near him.

Not ruling out your guesses, perhaps my tig was so stressed out was I decided it will be good strategy to gradually change its environment than a sudden big change. So, I decided to take out the old driftwood and had to cut the lines I used to tie them together. Hope it will feel the change, and then only put in what I built and also the sand. I think maybe it felt very exposed without any cover and with the driftwood not tied together anymore, that could be the main reason it doesn't recognize its old hiding spot.

But you're so right on the very stark lack of information on fishes compared to other animals, and ornamental fishes receives the least attention. I can understand that as studying fishes would require much more dedication and funds as they live in a different world. Tracking them will be extremely hard. And I guess request for funds to study on fishes are more easily obtained if they are viewed as an investment as there are much more studies on how to maximize stocking densities, growth rates, low mortality rates on food fishes compared to just even the basic natural habitat of ornamental fishes.

Wow, I have been trying so many times to complete writing my post but the phones and work related matters keeps getting me stopped halfway.

Anyway, thank you very much for your generous comments and views. Happy fish keeping, my friend.

 

[Asian Exotics]

Just an update on my tig and also probably to close off this thread for now. I didn't post anything earlier as I was pretty sure I subjected my Tig to quite some stress and if my Tig didn't make it, I'd probably be subjected to lots of cruelty to fish fingers pointing at me....

When I first had the hiding spot and substrate in, my tig did get very stressed, but luckily no mad dashing around anymore. But I left some bare bottom area and gave him time to explore the 'sand' areas as after purchase, this is the first time he had any contact with sand. Wasn't eating the whole time and did some vertical swimming, but not excessively. This period lasted 2 days.

Then he probably decided that the sand is not a threat and have been on it more frequently, but resting still he preferred bare bottom. He also started to hunt again but only very limited movement as much as I can stay awake.

Found him to explore his new 'pad' but still won't call it home yet (he used to be really fond of dark spots, the darker the better). I'll be adding more sand soon to cover the bare parts.

Now he still won't be resting in his purpose built home, but I see him hunting on cue again which relaxes me, and now I'm confident he's relaxed, maybe the long overhead cover isn't his 'thing'. Oh, btw, his cue to hunt is a double knock to the tank with my finger and lights off. He gets very excited each time there's a double knock ?

Now that he's mostly himself himself again, I'll settle my other tanks. While I admit my tank is not the right sized tank especially in terms of foot print, I'll be keeping him there until maybe he can accept pallets where he'll be safe to transfer to the bigger tanks or I happen to chance upon an affordable tank dedicated for my tig.

My other two tanks are one with an Asian arowana, don't think my tig will be too safe there. And another tank is a work in progress currently with only one Malaysian red mahseer (Tor Tambra), but with plans to populate the tank with Thai Blue Mahseer (Neolissochilus Stracheyi) and of course, can't miss out Tor Putitora (which a good sized one above 2 feet is impossible to find, as of now). Doubt my tig will get anything to eat with the mahseers all around and I read the blue mahseer can be quite ambitious in what they feel are potential meals.

So, at the moment, dedicated tank for my tig still. Not ideal sized tank yet but he has the best attention as it's the only tank inside my house ?

Happy fish keeping everyone....

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Thank you for this. I enjoyed reading it. Lovely fish. Nobody will point fingers, the point is learning and growing in the hobby and helping each other. If we were afraid to share all kinds of experiences with each other, positive and negative, we'd not have this forum. Most often we learn the best from negative experiences, ours or someone else's, much better than from positive.

Tigs need not live feeder fish. They train fine to take thawed fish and pellets or both. Usually best done when one first gets their tig. Now that you got yours so accustomed to live fish food, it will be stubborn to switch but it will if you fast him and / or trick him if need be.

I love mahseer too and have a collection, including all those you listed.

Asian arowana we can't keep in the US, so consider yourself lucky that way.

 

[Asian Exotics]

Thank you for this. I enjoyed reading it. Lovely fish. Nobody will point fingers, the point is learning and growing in the hobby and helping each other. If we were afraid to share all kinds of experiences with each other, positive and negative, we'd not have this forum. Most often we learn the best from negative experiences, ours or someone else's, much better than from positive.

Tigs need not live feeder fish. They train fine to take thawed fish and pellets or both. Usually best done when one first gets their tig. Now that you got yours so accustomed to live fish food, it will be stubborn to switch but it will if you fast him and / or trick him if need be.

I love mahseer too and have a collection, including all those you listed.

Asian arowana we can't keep in the US, so consider yourself lucky that way.

Thank you so much for the nice compliments. Indeed, I learnt most of what's a definite NO-NO, from bad experiences. Eg. Be extremely careful with certain medications like acriflavine on Tigs. Mine ended up being fatal on my first tig.

Tried my best to get it off live feeders, but probably I lack the discipline and feeders are easily available here. And from my first tig fatality from using medicine, I'm taking extra effort to quarantine and treat all feeders. With balanced meals to gut load them for my tig.

Yes, I have seen your mahseer (on YouTube again), they look amazing. And your new tank for the tig amazing too. Don't want to go way too off topic, but I sure hope to have the same job as you do, you seem to have an endless supply of huge tanks.... lol..

I had a plan for an 8 X 8 (footprint) X 4 in the near future, but with the current global economic situation, guess there are bigger priorities and the tank will have to be shelved until spending such amounts on a large tank can be justified.

Cheers... love your fishes...

 

[Asian Exotics]

I recorded something interesting, so I thought I'd post it here. Yes, I know pellets should offer way better diet balance than live feeders, but my fish is too stubborn. thebiggerthebetter , I'm not sure if this information may interest you, but now I do think that Tigs are smarter than I thought they were

Now my Tig rests at exactly where I predicted he would be resting, facing the length of the tank instead of the width (which is just 22 inches long), hoping it won't stunt his growth. But since I put in sand, it is more difficult to measure his length, I'll do a proper measurement when he's noticeably bigger.

Anyway, the interesting thing I managed to record on my phone is that whenever he catches a feeder that is too big for him to swallow immediately, I have observed him to use the rock that is part of his hiding spot to knock out his prey. This is cuz he would swallow heads first instead of from tail probably due to the dorsal bone on the tin foil feeders.

Well, first, I am not certain if this is normal Tig or more generally, Brachyplatystoma behaviour. But I can conclude with decent certainty that my Tig only does that for feeders too big to swallow immediately. It can be seen on the video at 1:30 minute and at 3:00 minute among them.

I'm not sure if such action can be categorized as an example of animal using tools, but the Tig is smarter than I thought.

While my Tig has been observed to do this quite often, but this is the first time I recorded due to my Tig usually will release the fish it caught once there are lights, but this time I noted it has been days since his last successful catch. So, I doubt he will let this chance pass.

On a different note, I also noticed that my tig does seem to have increased appetite as in it would now also sometimes hunt during day time, something he'd never do before and considering he ate 2 feeders the night before after I added koi clay to the tank (mainly calcium montmorillonite and other minerals). While I have only added twice and shall no way form a conclusion, it is an interesting observation that I'll continue to add and monitor.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

This is indeed an interesting behavior, something I have never heard of before and never could observe with my tigs because they are fed easily swallowable and non live items.

What did your tig use to bang the prey against before you added the new shelter?