Noticed a weird behavior from my Aussie Lung

[flamenco-t]

I have had this guy (about 20") for 2 years now, he has been living in a 600 gal tank with the same tankmates fro the entire time.

Tankmates: Rays, aro, dat, tigrinus cat and pacman catfish (2)

I recently sold my pacmans, and as soon as I moved the 2 pacmans out, he started to hang out on the return nozzle about 1/2" from the water surface, the problem is that I've fine tuned the overflow (herbie) to where it's dead silent but with a 20" log sitting in front of it, teh water flowing into the overflow changes.

Before the I moved the pacmans, he pretty sat on the bottom of the tank with an occasional gulping some air from the surface. But now, he won't stay on the bottom at all. I poke him occasionally to get him off the area in front of the overflow. He would swim down to the bottom, chill for a bit and come back up the same exact spot.

Any idea ?

stan

 

[DariusAmurdarja]

does he eat normal?

 

[pudgeking]

he clearly misses the catfish.

 

[X-Tank]

are your rays being territorial? maybe you can dim tank light and observe your AUL's activity in the dark. It's definitely sign of stress.

 

[kevinfleming21]

Sounds like moving the cats out changed the pecking order and now something is running him off to that spot, or he going there to get away from something

 

[Egon]

Maybe he's lazy and rests there to breathe easy? Most likely the Rays are picking on him and that is a quieter spot. Get him a good hiding place that the Rays can't get into and maybe he will go back to chillin on the bottom again.