Pictus Catfish hanging out at top of tank

[Beermanmc]

I recently bought a Pictus Catfish for my 55 gallon tank. I have a 2 year old Jack Dempsey in there with 2 red jewels, 5 Tiger Barbs and 5 buenos Aires Tetras as Dithers and an small Pleco, and chineese algea eater, a albino cory catfish and a single guppy that survived getting eaten and has grown to a size where he hangs out with the barbs.

Thank tank is well established and is planted with live plants and has wood and rock for caves and hiding places. All the levels are in normal range with the GH being in the "Watch" Range. I do frequent water changes (10% every other week when I clean the tank) and treat the new water added with prime.

I bought the Pictus and placed him in the tank and from day one, he hangs out around the top of the tank swimming back and forth and has not gone down to the bottom to any of the hiding places. He does eat like a champion and goes crazy when I feed the fish in the tank and then goes back to swimming at the top. Should I be worried or is this normal for a Pictus when they are added to an established tank? I'm a little worried about the little bugger.

Thanks!

[Bas Pels]

Assuming your 'Tiger barbs' are Puntius tetrazona (can't say I'm certain of the genus name) the matter is easily explained

In nature these tetrazona's are predated on by fish characterized (in their eyes) by long, slender fins. They are, however a rather resilent species, and what they do is, whenever they find such a predator - that is, a fish with long slender fins - they start mobbing it. They trey and bite, harrass it as much as possible, and the poor fish will flee for its life.

In a tank, any fish getting treated this way will have no chance of getting away, and thus the harassment will continue.

Most likely, the catfish's barbs are seen as fins.

We both know the pictus is innocent, but the barbs will never understand this.

Assuming this is the case, there are 2 solutions: either the barbs wil have to get out, or the pictus