petricola eating slimecoat

[sumthinfishy]

i have a group of 8 petricola in a 90 gal community tank. they appear to occasionally eat the slimecoat of of my red sevs. is this harmful to the other fish?

[N0body Of The Goat]

I believe I had something similar happen between my Synodontis brichardi and Ilyodon xantusi back in March (curiously my males were in far worse a state when I returned from a 4-day break). While the barely touched females recovered, my two healthiest males until then both passed away with a week of my return, despite daily water changes and Esha 2000 in a qurarantine tank. A saddle-like patch on both males' backs had been striped to the flesh.

I did not see any serious rasping first-hand, but just before my holiday and when the Ilyodon were added, I saw brief rasping encounters. The odd thing was these species were both in another tank last summer with no problems.

Right now I'm pondering about moving some Ilyodon back in that 6-footer, that has been lacking midwater fish since I added my "complicated relationship" reverse trio of Steatocranus that have since produced ~12 fry in the last month or so (very unusual for this time of year and the result of the female choosing another male to her first fry batch from Xmas), but I know this is going to need careful observation.