Pictus Accident?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Ndwatkins

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Oct 15, 2010
Messages
4
Location
Birmingham, AL
Hi, I'm Nicole, and this is my first time posting! My husband and I have a 55-gallon freshwater tank that currently houses 3 gouramis and an African spotted leaf fish. We're about a month into starting this tank and it's been cycling for about two months total. We've had some bad luck with various problems (ich, a different possible parasite that we're currently treating) but yesterday, our pictus catfish who exhibited no other health problems and who was acting completely normal until this accident, was swimming very zoomily in laps around the fish tank as he always did. My husband was doing a partial water change and moved one of the rocks to steady the structure, and as the pictus was coming around for another lap, he crashed very hard into the rock because it was in a different place than usual. About two minutes later, he died :(

I was just wondering if this has happened to anyone else before? I thought it was a very strange occurrence. Like I said, he was acting totally healthy and normal until this happened, and I guess it's just an unfortunate accident, but it was really depressing. Just curious if anyone else has ever had this happen!
 
When I move my rock work around in my African tank it takes the fish a few days to get to know where their new territories are. Last time my XL venustus lost a few scales from misjudging where the rocks were.

These things happen, and no-one never likes it when thier fish get hurt. But unfortunately this is part of the hobby that we all have to work through.
 
Sorry to hear about your pictus. They are some of my favs out of the catfish. I've never lost a fish in that manner, that had to be horrible.

I have had a pictus stab me in the foot when he jumped out of the net.

We were moving them from their old tank into their new one, from the 55g to the 120g. We were netting them to put them in a bucket for drip acclimation when the biggest one of our group decided to jump. He landed pectoral fin down, into the top of my foot. I was freaked obviously, and it was thrashing around, causing it's fin to tear a larger hole. He survived, and to this day I've got a nice scar. Seems like all, if not most catfish, pictus have a type of poisonous venom. The wound slowly healed into a bubble, which remains today.

Now when I'm in the tank for cleaning or just looking into it, I swear he starts at me with this "I got you" look. ;)
 
Thanks for the responses guys =) Made me feel a little better to commiserate. Sometimes I wish I didn't get so attached to our fish, but aquariums will never be just furniture to me...one of the reasons I really like this site is everyone else seems to feel that way, too.

Hopefully we'll stop having our tank problems soon and can get some new fish. The husband and I set up a quarantine tank now that we've had our first batch of fish, and we're waiting for that to cycle...hopefully when it's done we can bring home some more. I would really love to get some more pictus catfish, I really liked the personality of ours. I hear they like to live in threes?
 
I'm personally glad you fell that way about your fish :) I mean they are bought from pet stores, so treat them like pets is how I've always felt.
 
I can completely relate! One of my tanks sprung a leak last week, and when we were moving the residents to another tank, I lost my biggest (about 6") polkadot loach. Right after I released him into the tank, he spazzed and then just sort of "fell over" and floated to the bottom of the tank. Now I'd seen him "sleeping" on his side tons of times, so I was thinking he was playing dead... Nope. He was really dead. :(
 
:( I am sorry for your losses, Nicole and aa79606. Fish die from blunt trauma sometimes, although I had not yet heard of a fish doing it by itself.
 
Sorry to hear about your pictus. They are some of my favs out of the catfish. I've never lost a fish in that manner, that had to be horrible.

I have had a pictus stab me in the foot when he jumped out of the net.

We were moving them from their old tank into their new one, from the 55g to the 120g. We were netting them to put them in a bucket for drip acclimation when the biggest one of our group decided to jump. He landed pectoral fin down, into the top of my foot. I was freaked obviously, and it was thrashing around, causing it's fin to tear a larger hole. He survived, and to this day I've got a nice scar. Seems like all, if not most catfish, pictus have a type of poisonous venom. The wound slowly healed into a bubble, which remains today.

Now when I'm in the tank for cleaning or just looking into it, I swear he starts at me with this "I got you" look. ;)

LOL! and wear shoes!
 
Back
Top Bottom