Hello everyone! At my work we have a 12 in LSC who's been in a 120 gallon tank with a tinfoil barb and some angel fish for about a year now. I noticed this past week that he's become a lot less active. He used to swim back and forth all day and constantly be moving, and now he seems to just sit in one spot. His appetite has been fine and the water params are fine as well. I was just curious if any of you guys have experience with catfish and could maybe help me out. He's my favorite fish in the store and I'm a little worried.
Help: Inactive Lima Shovelnose Catfish not active.
- Thread starter Melbell
- Start date
His current behavior is actually very much the norm. I would be more worried about his being active - so don't worry!
Ohhh okay so they usually don't move around much anyways? Because I swear he moved ONCE today and that was feeding time. Sorry, never had catfish so I'm not familliar with them at all.
Yes, that is perfectly normal. His swimming all over the place was probably an indication that something was wrong with the water at that time.
Actually you know what? I'm making a connection. I think he was stressed from not being fed enough. I've only been working at this particular LFS for maybe two months now. Everyone else I've ever seen feed that tank would throw in pellets for the barb and the catfish but I never really saw him eat. It really bothered me so one day I decided to see what would happen if I fed him a smaller crayfish and he LOVED it! I've been giving him a couple every time I work now. So maybe he's less stressed. He also likes algae wafers that I throw in for a smaller pleco... Not sure if he's supposed to eat that but I figure he know's what he wants hahaha.
That sounds logical. If he was really hungry, he might have been looking for food swimming wildly all over the tank. This is not typical for this fish but perhaps possible. These are ambush predators that stay/float vertically, head down among vegetation pretending to be a twig or a plant and wait for a suitable prey to come by too close.
Laying around all day should not be normal either, although loners in empty tanks do that often. I think if he had some type of plants, real or fake, he'd do his head-standing most of the time. Mine do anyway, even without any plants but in a good group - young Sorubim lima like company of each other; adults don't care. Yet, yours might be a Sorubim elongatus (which maxes out at 1') and be already an adult. These two fish are very hard to tell apart for laymen like us.
Laying around all day should not be normal either, although loners in empty tanks do that often. I think if he had some type of plants, real or fake, he'd do his head-standing most of the time. Mine do anyway, even without any plants but in a good group - young Sorubim lima like company of each other; adults don't care. Yet, yours might be a Sorubim elongatus (which maxes out at 1') and be already an adult. These two fish are very hard to tell apart for laymen like us.
He literally looks exactly like this:
So Sorubim Elongatus? (Learn something new every day). Thank you for the advice, I'll try to find some appropriate plants for his tank! Also, do you have a recommended diet for these fish?
As I mentioned, it is very hard to tell from the exterior features. See this for more if interested, please http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=30938&hilit=+elongates
http://www.planetcatfish.com/common/species.php?species_id=697 offers kind of soft ID: "...Very generally, Sorubim with spots are usually S. elongatus. (TBTB edit: as opposed to the other 4 species in this genus.) (TBTB edit: appears mostly true IME with ~20 of these fish.) They are more of a black water species and, as with most such species, tend towards more variable, spotted patterning."
They need not live feedings, unless we are talking earth worms or ghost shrimp, lizards, land frogs, etc. They are small predators that snatch small fish (anything that can fit in their mouth which is big for their slender body structure but not big compared to other medium and large pimelodidae catfish), crustaceans, insects in the wild. I always feed mine frozen/thawed foods - small whole fishes, fish pieces, shrimp/prawn/etc. or their pieces if too large (do not peel; raw is better than cooked), sea foods.
They can be trained to take pellets but the cases where they thrive on pellets are very few it appears to me, even on Hikari Mascivore pellets.
When small they seem to like freeze-dried and fresh bloodworms, plankton (mini-shrimp-like creatures), etc.
http://www.planetcatfish.com/common/species.php?species_id=697 offers kind of soft ID: "...Very generally, Sorubim with spots are usually S. elongatus. (TBTB edit: as opposed to the other 4 species in this genus.) (TBTB edit: appears mostly true IME with ~20 of these fish.) They are more of a black water species and, as with most such species, tend towards more variable, spotted patterning."
They need not live feedings, unless we are talking earth worms or ghost shrimp, lizards, land frogs, etc. They are small predators that snatch small fish (anything that can fit in their mouth which is big for their slender body structure but not big compared to other medium and large pimelodidae catfish), crustaceans, insects in the wild. I always feed mine frozen/thawed foods - small whole fishes, fish pieces, shrimp/prawn/etc. or their pieces if too large (do not peel; raw is better than cooked), sea foods.
They can be trained to take pellets but the cases where they thrive on pellets are very few it appears to me, even on Hikari Mascivore pellets.
When small they seem to like freeze-dried and fresh bloodworms, plankton (mini-shrimp-like creatures), etc.