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My boyfriend was given a 22 UK gallon tank for free by a work colleague a month or two ago and immediately demanded 'whiskery fish', i.e the pictus cats he always liked to have a look at while I browsed the fancy goldfish in our lfs. After borrowing one of my fish to cycle the tank with he introduced three 3-inch pictus.

After just a day of being wary they appeared to settle right in, cruising the bottom of the tank, eating a ridiculous amount of food and protecting their new territory by vigorously attacking the siphon tube once a week.

However, just one of them has begun acting very weirdly. He hovers in one corner of the tank, about halfway up, nose up, just moving his tail slightly to keep himself in that position. He'll return briefly to the bottom of the tank for food but returns straight to that position afterwards. This behaviour started about three days after they were introduced, and he does it constantly - all day, all night, for hours at a time. He only briefly acts normal for food and if one of the others bullies him out of the corner.

The only thing I can think of that causes listlessness and repetitive behaviour is water quality issues but it can't be that, I help him do waterchanges and water testing myself. The nitrates are always 20-30, temp is 23c, the ph value I can't remember offhand but I tested it just last week and it was normal, no drops or climbs since they were introduced. However bear in mind I'm a fancy goldfish keeper and might be missing something catfish-specific although it seems unlikely. He appears perfectly healthy except for hovering like a tard in the corner Any ideas, anyone?

Are there adequate hiding spaces in the tank? Many catfish hover in a head up position when there are no adequate hiding spaces.

There's a large cave-like area created by an arched piece of bogwood and also a length of pipe hidden at the back of the tank. The other two use both of these so there is always one big space free for him to hide in.

Also, pictus are a shoaling fish. If there's only three, you will see odd behaviour.

Surely if they weren't happy in a group of three they'd all exhibit odd behaviour, not just one? Although I accept that a larger group would be nicer, and it will be a possibility after christmas when I can think about upgrading my own tank leaving my old one free for a group of perhaps six or seven.

One of the points about keeping Pictus cats in a group is that they live in a hierarchy. There will be one that is dominant, and others that are not at this level. I have a group of 5 (although I must say they aren't much different from when I had 3), of which there is one that is definitely the "chief", and others that are not so dominant.

If you have a group of three, maybe the two that are hiding are dominating the third one away from the hidey place.

I have MANY hiding places in my tank, so I don't know what happens if you have less places to hide and a small group.

I also don't see my fish very often except for when there is food in the tank [which doesn't last long in my tank!]

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Mats

That sounds like it could be right, although I thought we'd allowed plenty of hiding space for them all. I've got some more spare pvc tube I can try adding, the other two love that, or if that doesn't work I'll dig out some small bits of bogwood and make him his own cave.

Would I be right in assuming there might be some issues with introducing another three or four if a tank upgrade was possible? I don't want them sorting out their hierarchial issues by beating up the smallest new one! Then again I don't suppose there's much you can do if they decide to take issue with one another.

Thanks for the help so far, will definitely add more cover to the tank and plan for the upgrade.

First of all, mine tends to hide in dark, fairly tight places, so if your arch-like construction of wood is fairly open, that may be why it doesn't like hiding there..

I added three small pictus cats to my exisiting three larger ones [one of the large ones died a while later, unknown what caused it as I was at that time living in a different house than the tank was placed at, hence I've only got five now], and I didn't see any problems with that.

I don't see them hassle each other very often, but sometimes when they get too close, they will "bash tails" and have some small skirmishes, but nothing too violent.

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Mats