Last update on our large capa.
Third time is not always a charm. Sometimes, it's the last straw.
So I worked up the stupidity (not to be confused with courage) to try the capa in the 4500 gal again, where I tried it twice before, as described above, with poor results that came sooner or later.
It was a vibrant fish in mint condition (due to having been solo in its 240 gal for a while) except the snout, at 8 am. At 3 pm it was all biten up and couldn't stay upright anymore.
Between those times I've come over to the tank and checked on capa several times and didn't see anything too alarming, except that the fish couldn't understand where the walls of the 4500 gal were and was bumping into them. I attributed it to the fact that it has spent a couple of years in a 240 gal where it grew from about a foot to the current 27"... and that 240 gal is 8x2x2, pretty tight for a 2'+ fish, so poor thing couldn't quite get it where the new walls were.
Another downfall of mine was that it takes some time for bite marks to develop redness, which gives them visibility. From the size of the bite marks it seems the most trouble came from our 5-pack of vulture catfish. They sense a fish in distress and it makes them go for the victim, as I observed with black ear shark catfish and iridescent shark catfish before. Still, I have not caught the vultures do that in my checkups. The fins got lots of damage too between my last checkup and when I had to pull the fish out.
I saw our mahseers mouthing capas fins and chasing it. They do it to every new fish and leave no physical damage but increase the stress of the newcomer for sure.
I missed when the serious damage was done or when the capa reached the point of no return of becoming pretty much discombobulated in a state of shock. In the hindsight I should have sat and watched the fish for an hour or so...
I held the capa in the filter output flow for 20 min and it got the capa to stay upright and swim around more or less ok back in its homey 240 gal but by the nightfall it went upside down again and was dead of course the next morning.
Overall, capapretum I have found to be very hard to house in any communities but literally the most peaceful ones where its tank mates don't pay it any attention whatsoever. It's a nervous, skittish fish that runs away full speed from anything it perceives as possible danger. It has very, very little capacity for learning and adapting, exceedingly primitive in that regard.
Tyjo's 2'+ donated capapretum got too killed in the first night when it was introduced into a South American themed tank at Shedd. Consistent with my sad result.
When it was smaller, it took both pellets and thawed fish. In the last couple of years, it didn't want to have anything to do with pellets, always only wanted fish and could pig out on it every feeding. It has an enormous appetite when it is comfortable.
I got it pretty small at 3" or so in Aug 2015, which makes it about 3.5 years today.
Last measure 27".
