Problem Dominant Blue Gill and Brown Bullhead Catfish

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Rays of Sunshine

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 20, 2010
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Georgia
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The most dominant blue gill(3 inches) has biting the tail of the brown bullhead(12 inches). The blue gill has made the tip of the bullhead's tail pink.

The catfish had rearranged a large piece of wood again, so I don't know if it didn't have the room to push forward. I moved the wood, the blue gill keeps attacking so the catfish wedges itself in the corner of the tank tail expose. I am finally able to make the catfish move.

The catfish moved back to it's section of the tank. Now everytime it sees the pest bluegill close, it swings it's tail back and forth and then turns around charging slowly at blue gill. Blue gill gets scared and moves to the otherside of wood which is where the tail is exposed. This goes on for quite a while.

Do I need to try and create a cave for this bullhead with wood? The two fish are now sharing the same territory. The blue gill has a challenger that has darkened up also. Will the blue gill teach the other blue gills to attack the tail of the catfish? Will it leave the catfish alone after awhile? Do I need to move the blue gill out of the tank? All the other fish still fear the catfish. They see the catfish and stay away from it. Any suggestions?
 
How big of a tank do you have them in? Sunfish will attack predators (I tried putting a redfin pickeral in with 2 green sunfish....bad idea) as a preemptive strike in a small tank. If the tanks big enough with enough cover they can sometimes coexist.
 
It is a 75 gallon breeder. The fish in question never bothered the catfish. It is amazing how the sunfish know that they should leave this fish alone. They all would leave an 8 inch gap between them and the catfish at all times. I think the blue gill had no choice when it was kicked out of its territory by an rival. So I have rearranged the tank to create more territories. Hopefully this will work. I wanted a smaller catfish max 5 inches. So this has sped up the process of getting the bigger tank.
 
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