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About a year ago I bought a couple Pictus Catfish because I liked their REALLY long whiskers and steely silver grey and black spotted coloration. They seemed pretty active in the store's tank...and liked the way they actively cruised around my 55g tank so much, that the next day I bought 3 more to watch.

Now, they've grown to about 6 inches long and all 5 of them are somewhat bothersome because their CRAZY FRANTIC racing around Nonstop (many times spooking the other fish) as they ZOOM by at full speed near constantly.

I feed them well and have lots of places for them to hide...IF they wanted to. But they still Isanely Race around trying go somewhere...and then somewhere else!

Are they all just Nuts? Or what are they looking for besides food and cover? I feed them good brand bottom pellets...but are they looking for something else in their diet? (their bellies all bulging with food until they "temporarily" slow down.

Whats with this fish...Are they just Crazy Restless Gluttens? Or is something missing in their diet that their looking for constantly/frantically?

I have had Pictus for years but not any more. They certainly like to be in groups and the more the merrier they get. Yes they fly all over the tank especially at feeding time. Other times they dart from one place to another always on the look out for food. I am starting to survive my BNs again as they just cleaned them up as soon as they started free swimming.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

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So that's "normal",keithgh?

They are not just darting around the tank, they wiggle/swim extremely fast up and down, up and down, up and down the end sides of my tank against the glass looking like they want Constantly to excape Really badly!

Is there nothing I can do to mellow them out???
There are LOTs of hiding places, but don't use most of them at all....sometimes just swimming vertically at the ends of my tank against the glass! There are NO fish in the tank that could harm them, and they are left alone by all the way smaller fish in there.

(what does "survive my BNs" mean, please?)

AFAIK this is more or less natural behavior. Many fish species are highly active, not all fish just swim around calmly or precisely. The pictus cats might be taking to the wall a lot because there isn't much bottom space in the tank, either because of decorations or because the tank's footprint isn't large enough; on the other hand, my .5" Corys will climb the walls and my tank is 125 gallons. It's not necessarily that they want to escape, but they just want to swim around, and they need space for that. 5 active 6" fish in a 55 gallon might mean there's not a lot of room to keep their activity restricted to the bottom, even if they wanted to.

A healthy fish is a hungry fish. In most circumstances a healthy fish will want to eat.

Keith is talking about his baby bristlenose plecs. In the past his pictus cats would eat them, but now he doesn't have them anymore so he can grow them up.

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