Micropletis beatin to a pulp by African catfish !!!
- Thread starter xellos
- Start date
I think the micropeltes as a species are direct descendants of wolverine of the xmen. Mine has cut and bruised himself many times when jumping into the lid and recovered in about 24-72... Its crazy, no wonder America fears these fish lol
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Normally when we introduce our new fish directly to a new tank they need time to adjust their new place. But in this case, your snakehead maybe haven't much time to adapt new enviroment then been attack by that catfish...lol. And for the catfish he/she already own that place and just protect his/her territory. That's it.
Maybe you are right . But its good to know that I had a full grown Oscar and a bunch of other Cichlids in that same tank when I got the catfish at 2 inches I put in that tank . A while later , when the catfish had grown to approx. 16 inches it attacked and killed my Oscar ( the biggest fish in the tank ) and left all the other Cichlids .
To prove your Theory , I guess we must switch things up , lets re-introduce the catfish now to the snakehead tank . now the snakehead is healthy , bigger and call the tank its home .
In my own opinion its because the Catfish attacks at night , The snakehead cant see anythin so takes a beatin and bumps into rocks and driftwood while it escapes . During the day , when the SH is weakend the catfish still attacks . It shows how persistent these Catfish are , since it wasn't deterred no matter how much the snakehead bites or fought back .
From that last description My guess would be that the catfish is very dominate but not overly territorial (not to mention huge and tough as nails lol) But with that "personality" he will likely tolerate tank mates who pose no threat and stay out of his way, but destroy them if challenged or if they become competition.
Just a complete guess, but Micro's and a large Oscar are both territorial species, they will challenge tank mates for dominance even ones bigger then them. I bet they probably both picked fights they couldn't win.
Also, my experience with snakeheads is that once they settle in they become VERY territorial toward any new tankmates , adding a large catfish to a tank that the snakehead is already living in will likely result in some violent fights very quickly. If they survive the initial breakout then I'd expect your right a nighttime fight will likly break out and finish someone off.
The best chance of success would be completely new tank introducing both fish to a new environment at the exact same time, and even then i bet it would not take very long before the Micro start challenging the catfish who will simple give him a another beating and/or kill him. Of course it could go the other way if the snakehead gets a nice kill shot out of the blue. That catfish will win a fight , but that micro very is capable of giving some brutal one bite kills .
Ill have to give it a try , but first I need a Gigantic tank , so each fish can claim a separate territory .
