Hi folks,
I'm a bit concerned about my spotted cat. When I got him about about a month ago he had a pretty impressive little belly and in general looked very healthy. However, it seems like all he does is hide in his cave. Every once in a while, including when I feed the tank, he'll poke his head out, but he almost never ventures out. I discovered through experimentation that he'll venture out a bit when the lights are off, but that's about the only time I see him.
I've started a two-a-day feeding schedule to try and assure he gets a chance to eat. I feed a light-ish amount of flakes in the morning, and then again with the tank light off right before bed along with a dash of freeze dried blood worms. My theory here is that this will allow him to comfortably get some food, since he seems to be light averse.
I don't see any external evidence of sickness; his fins look good, there's no fuzzy (fungus) or stringy stuff (worms or fungus) hanging from him, and he's a great looking fish at about 3" although he's lost weight since I got him.
My tank is a 36 gallon and is about two months old. Otherwise I have 5 lamp eye tetras, a bloodfin tetra, an awesome bamboo shrimp, and three small guppies. I do regular water changes and so far the only things that have died are one bloodfin and one guppy. All the other fish seem to be doing really well. There is one medium cave, one rather large cave that he stays in, and several artificial plants. The substrate is gravel, and it gets vacuumed with the vacuum siphon during each WC.
What say you, collective wisdom? Is this normal behavior for a pictus?
Jim
I'm a bit concerned about my spotted cat. When I got him about about a month ago he had a pretty impressive little belly and in general looked very healthy. However, it seems like all he does is hide in his cave. Every once in a while, including when I feed the tank, he'll poke his head out, but he almost never ventures out. I discovered through experimentation that he'll venture out a bit when the lights are off, but that's about the only time I see him.
I've started a two-a-day feeding schedule to try and assure he gets a chance to eat. I feed a light-ish amount of flakes in the morning, and then again with the tank light off right before bed along with a dash of freeze dried blood worms. My theory here is that this will allow him to comfortably get some food, since he seems to be light averse.
I don't see any external evidence of sickness; his fins look good, there's no fuzzy (fungus) or stringy stuff (worms or fungus) hanging from him, and he's a great looking fish at about 3" although he's lost weight since I got him.
My tank is a 36 gallon and is about two months old. Otherwise I have 5 lamp eye tetras, a bloodfin tetra, an awesome bamboo shrimp, and three small guppies. I do regular water changes and so far the only things that have died are one bloodfin and one guppy. All the other fish seem to be doing really well. There is one medium cave, one rather large cave that he stays in, and several artificial plants. The substrate is gravel, and it gets vacuumed with the vacuum siphon during each WC.
What say you, collective wisdom? Is this normal behavior for a pictus?
Jim