Glass/ghost Catfish

[jkarlson]

In my 55 gallon tank, I had very few plants, many hiding spots, and 3 Glass Catfish(among a few other fish). As stated in many other topics about them, they like to form a small pack and stay 1 spot all day.

A few weeks later I decided to spruce up the tank a little with some plants. I added approximately 3-4 new plants and after the initial stress of my hand in the tank, they went back to a transparent color, and decided to hang out right next to one of the Twisted Valisneria. Although it was a small win because now they were visible all day.


After much bickering back and forth with myself on what kind of cichlid tank to do, I went the complete opposite way and made it into a non-aggressive(well slightly non-aggressive) community tank. I added 3 new plants, to spruce it up and help with the bioload, and added Cardinal Tetra and a few other fish. Since then the Ghost Catfish have started to hang out with the Cardinal Tetras, and even 2 or 3 Ghost Cats will go out together and explore the rest of the tank and then swim quickly back to the group. One even decided it would swim around with the Rosy Barb for a few minutes.


I'm beyond excited that they have started to become social! What do you think triggered its sudden social activeness?

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Glass Catfish have a reputation for being very shy fish that can pine away when kept in small numbers, but I suspect the new Vallis gave them a great er sense of security, that was then further enhanced by the new Cardinal Tetra.

However, you will almost certainly have a problem if your signature stocking list is correct... Your Leopard Ctenopoma will eat those Cardinals! I bought three of my four as babies, not much bigger than a 50p coin, but they are now ~10cm long with telescopic mouths that could easily vacuum in any fish less chunky than my index fingers.

 

[jkarlson]

Yeah, currently he's only 1.5"....maybe pushing 1.75". Once he gets big enough to start disrupting the peace of the tank, he's most likely going into my old unused 30 gallon. Right now I stock the tank with 10 Ghost Shrimp weekly, and by Sunday him and the Rosy Barb(never knew they ate Ghost Shrimp!) have the stock demolished.



And you were right, the place the spend the majority of their time, between 2 Vallisneria plants mingled in with the Tetra. Really a beautiful fish(albeit with no color) to watch when their active.