What's the biggest fish your ctenopoma has eaten?

[DaveB]

I'm thinking of moving my Leopard Ctenopoma in with my African tank now that I sold my Demasoni and will be lowering the pH a tad. He's totally out of place in my SA tank at the moment because I had nowhere else to put him after consolidating tanks and because the African tank was mostly vegetarian. Now that it doesn't have to be, I want to move him to a slightly more geographically appropriate tank. But I'm concerned he might eat a clown loach or maybe a smaller cichlid.

He's just under fist-sized and his mouth itself is pretty small. But obviously, that can expand and change. I just wonder if he only eats fish that are obviously small enough to fit, or whether they think it's worth the effort to really jam one in there. I've read many reports of them vaccuuming up tetras, but not much has been said about anything larger. Anyone have any experience with this?

 

[Bottomfeeder]

I love my Cten
He hasn't eaten any live fish but he does have some interesting eating habits. He loves bloodworms and can swallow a big slug of the stuff without skipping a beat, but with flakes he has to grab them, spit them out, grab them, spit them out, and do that a few times. By the time they are small enough for him to eat, they are gone and have become Yoyo Loach food.

 

[Madding]

Mine has never eaten a live fish but at 6" often quarrels with my Silver Dats and often wins the stand-off. Tough guy.

 

[DaveB]

I love my Cten
He hasn't eaten any live fish but he does have some interesting eating habits. He loves bloodworms and can swallow a big slug of the stuff without skipping a beat, but with flakes he has to grab them, spit them out, grab them, spit them out, and do that a few times. By the time they are small enough for him to eat, they are gone and have become Yoyo Loach food.

I love mine too, which is why he lives with SA cichlids - cause when I sold my dats and consolidated tanks I couldn't bring myself to get rid of him because he's so cool. He's one of the few fish I have that gets a name too (Pokey), which just strengthens the attachment.

Anyway, he does the EXACT same thing. Though since I added the young Uaru to that tank the bloodworm never even makes it down to him. He ends up eating whatever Hikarai Arowana pellets Batman (my black aro) leaves behind.

Mine has never eaten a live fish but at 6" often quarrels with my Silver Dats and often wins the stand-off. Tough guy.

Mine has, to my knowledge, never had a fish get into it with him or gotten into it with another in about two years that I've had him. He just glides around peacefully and quietly and is completely ignored. He lived with Dats for quite a while, but my dats were apparently uncommonly peaceful. Other than the basic introductory pecking order establishment, they never did anything even remotely standoffish.

Now that the African tank can get meaty foods, I want to put him in there. But I and the woman are kind of attached to two of the younger fish that we found surviving among the adults as fry and have raised since then. I'm sure if he opened wide he could eat them. But he hasn't eaten anything alive in 2 years, and never that large. These days he still "hunts", but only stuff at the surface (sometimes bubbles... he's weird). Still, if he really wanted to, he might be able to get those two. Or the smaller two loaches. And that'd be bad.

I guess another way to ask the question would be this: What's the SMALLEST fish you've kept with one that he didn't eat?

 

[Madding]

African cichlids before I upgraded him to my 150. He never bothered them even though he was bigger.

He enjoys guppies whenever I add a new fish to the tank. I make it a point to wean all my fish off feeders (and indeed all live food except bloodworms) but whenever I get a new monster-in-the-making I usually have to give them some guppies. My Cteno goes into hunting mode then.

Otherwise, honestly, I've never noticed any outwards aggression or interest in smaller fish. I've kept maybe six of them over the past three years and all of them ate flakes, bloodworms and krill... and occasionally those guppies.

I think anything small and silvery would be game for becoming dinner - most of mine have been tanked with colorful companions.