What to feed a Pictus Cat?

[elevatethis]

I've got a 4" pictus cat in a 37 gal with a few smaller cichlids. I've had him about a week and haven't observed him eat a thing. I feed cichlid pellets, colorbits sinking granules, shrimp pellets, freezedried krill, freezedried bloodworms. He's very active and just swims around ignoring the food.

I don't really know much about them, is he just cleaning up uneaten food from the rest of the tank or what?

 

[IMFishHead]

I'd check your water parameters. If all that "uneaten" food remains in tank it will spoil the water. I feed mine just about anything, Loves pieces of thawed frozen shrimp. Sounds like you might need a water change. Even 50%

 

[JCA]

and the ones i have had love earthworms and thawed frozen minnows...

 

[bolty]

i have 4 in a 4x2x2, they eat all frozen foods, squid, prawns, muscles, cat pellets, sinking cic pellets, flake, plec wafers, 50/50 they will have floating pellers from the top, salmon, mill worms, earth worms and they do like a bit of ham (as in the stuff you put in your bread

 

[elevatethis]

I guess he just needed some time to acclimate......he's now settled in and eating sinking pellets, bloodworms, krill, likes shrimp pellets the best......

Thanks!

 

[ospy]

I agree with I'm fish head, They should eat just about anything. I'm not so sure its always apparent when they are eating though. If he's busy all the time, nosing around in the gravel, and he doesn't seem to be losing weight, he might be eating and your just not seeing it. However, you might try freeze dried krill. You'll have to put enough in that some will finaly sink. But if you see him turn his nose up at that, perhaps there may be health issues. Also, like someone before me said, if the krill reaches the bottom at all, it means everyone else is done eating so if your pictus doesn't eat it, it should be removed. I think you said you've tried blood worms. If your pictus is nosing around where blood worms have fallen he's probably eating them. If your looking for some real chewing action, you might not get it.

 

[Amatyi1]

I've got a 4" pictus cat in a 37 gal with a few smaller cichlids. I've had him about a week and haven't observed him eat a thing. I feed cichlid pellets, colorbits sinking granules, shrimp pellets, freezedried krill, freezedried bloodworms. He's very active and just swims around ignoring the food.

I don't really know much about them, is he just cleaning up uneaten food from the rest of the tank or what?

I know this is an old post from 2006 but in case people see this when searching for results I wanted to add my experience with adding a Pictus Catfish to my Cichlid tank. When I first added my Pictus he hid all day and at night he would race back and forth playing with my bubble wall. He didn't eat much unless I put it right on top of him and then distracted the other fish by feeding them. It took a couple weeks and putting him in a smaller tank and then putting him back in the big tank before he started getting confidence and establishing his territory and now he's right there waiting at the bottom for pellets and blood worms to fall when I feed the fish. It took him a while but he became a huge pig. Whenever adding new fish always give them a couple weeks to get used to new territory and parameters before getting worried about them not eating. I just thought I'd add this for anyone that needs to hear.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Thank you for this great first post. One thing I didn't get:

It took a couple weeks and putting him in a smaller tank and then putting him back in the big tank before he started getting confidence and establishing his territory ...

If I understood this right... this can't be right. You don't keep moving fish from tank to tank. This is huge stress on fish, only delays their acclimation and comfort. Done enough times over a short period of time, it will kill the fish.