spotted picto eating my pencil fish?

[DustinO7]

Hey y'all,

How agressive are these guys? i have never seen any problems with mine.. *seen*

However, i've also never seen him eat. rarely anyways. and yet when he was alone in a tank with penguin tetras, i found 3 of my tetras to be missing, body and all, over a period of about 1 1/2 weeks.

THEN, i moved them all over to a 35g tank, and the did fine. picto hangs out low, penguins in the middle, then added pencil fish who enjoy top surface level of tank. out of 6 fish, i lost 5 pencils in 5 days. one a day, exactly. No bodies, and nobodies bellies looked any bigger. but i have the suspicion that it was a hungry cat fish.... any tips?

-Dustin

 

[wayne]

Yes, spotted pims prowl around at night, snapping up tetras and such that sleep on the bottom

 

[Faramir]

They are not aggressive at all. They are, as you are discovering, predatory, however.

 

[ChilDawg]

As Faramir summed up, aggression is not known for these fish, but they will snack on anything they can catch with little remorse (it's just what they do!!!) If your picto is picking off fish at night, nocturnal tankmates might be the best route, or, better yet, none at all (except for the occasional feeder).