Recently purchased a 5in gulper catfish from online via Petzone. I’ve had it for a week now. Didn’t come out of his/her hide for a day upon arrival which is understandable. I have 2 platys in gulper tank for feeding and he/she won’t touch them. Also tried frozen thawed shrimp and Talpia fillets and zero results. Recently did a 30% water change and vacuum, tap water was treated with Prime and stress coat plus. Ever since the water change my gulper has been acting different such as glass surfing in the corners of tank, even sitting vertical against glass and hang on back filter for long periods of time. swimming around Wavemaker for hours then back to glass surfing. Hasn’t went in hide for 3days now just constant swimming repatitive glass surfing and circles around Wavemaker. Just looking for some feedback or anything to help me understand this behavior. My tank is cycled 7.0 PH ,0ppm ammonia , 0ppm nitrites, 5.0ppm nitrates
NEW GULPER CATFISH BEHAVIOR
- Thread starter Omarr502
- Start date
Just because a thread doesn't get a response immediately doesn’t mean to post it again bud. Be patient and people will eventually respond.
These fish take time to settle. Just continue to keep the water clean and try to avoid feeding live food if able.
Well-asked question. B BenjaminFranklin Take note, sir, if you will.
The behavior is not out of the norm. 1-2 weeks of settling time is not unheard of, especially if the water's chemistry and parameters are vastly different from old water to yours. Swimming you describe is typical of them. Mine does that too in all the details you describe.
If your water is hard, the gulper is unlikely to thrive or even survive long term. In general beware that 90% of gulper keepers lose them in the first several months to half a year. 95% lose them in over a year. 99% over 2 years. They are a very hard fish to keep well long term. Such s my impression anyway.
Don't feed it live, it will kill it sooner than later. Gulpers learn to take prepped feeds perfectly fine.
Is your test kit liquid?
Thanks a lot for the feedback and info, and it’s said that such a awesome fish can be so hard to keep, I won’t give up tho. My test kit is liquid, I have the API TEST KIT. I have driftwood in tank but PH never lowers it’s always been a steady 7.0 to 7.2 max. Hopefully that won’t be downfall.