i have a 13" ck and last night i added a 6" tinfoil barb, he is in no danger of being eaten but all night he got chased, by this morning a lot of his scales were gone and his fins are cut in strait lines to the body. can stress do this so quickly? i think he is leaving him alone now that territories are established. what time frame should i expect for healing to take place and his stress go down. is there anything i can do to expidite his healing.
new tinfoil in the tank getting stressed
- Thread starter philhawk
- Start date
It's not stress that's splitting fins and ripping out scales. CKs are primarily nocturnal hunters. Your knife is kicking the crap out of your tinfoil. He's not going to heal while he's stressed about being eaten. And, with the growth rate being larger in CKs than in tinfoils, the problem is only going to get worse. There's no territorial line between the two when one is an apex predator and the other is a prey species. Plus, tinfoils are shoaling fish and don't ever fully relax with less than 3 in a group.
ive had other fish in the tank before and its been my experience that he doesnt chase anything he doesnt think he can fit in his mouth. and the tinfoil being about 3" tall (not including fins) and the clown can open his mouth about 1.5-2" im sure that he isnt trying to eat him. i wonder if my bioload could handel anymore tinfoil. im running two penguin 350's in a 75gal
The CK is a nocturnal predator. The tinfoil is a nice silvery fish that'll flash from any lighting hitting the tank after lights out. That flash is an instinctual trigger to the CK to lunge at prey. Doesn't matter if you had any other fish in with the CK before. BTW, what happened to those previous occupants?
given away or done in by growth rates. had 4 angel fish that never got chased, broken fins or lost scales and they were about 2.5" long but about the same or more tall. it was the bala shark that got eaten but thats because in the time it took my ck to grow 4" the bala grew about 1/4"