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Hey guys,

just wanted to quickly check with other keepers of P. pictus - recently purchased a group of 4 pictus, each about 7cm long, and popped them in a 4ft long tank.

Unlike what I observed in the aquarium where they were swimming actively in a group and around the tank, my pictus generally don't stay together, instead preferring to hide individually in pipework. Whenever they bump into one another in the tank, they perform a quick flick of their bodies and swim away.

I don't think they're fighting for food or space, since they appear healthy and in good colour. Since its my first time keeping pictus, I wasn't exactly sure if this is normal behaviour, or maybe its due to their young age?

This sounds fairly typical for a small group of p pictus, so nothing to worry about.

Cory_lover wrote:Hey guys,

just wanted to quickly check with other keepers of P. pictus - recently purchased a group of 4 pictus, each about 7cm long, and popped them in a 4ft long tank.

Unlike what I observed in the aquarium where they were swimming actively in a group and around the tank, my pictus generally don't stay together, instead preferring to hide individually in pipework. Whenever they bump into one another in the tank, they perform a quick flick of their bodies and swim away.

I don't think they're fighting for food or space, since they appear healthy and in good colour. Since its my first time keeping pictus, I wasn't exactly sure if this is normal behaviour, or maybe its due to their young age?

I keep a group of 5 adult P.pictus and this is pretty much exactly how they behave.

I agree, completely normal behaviour.

Expect the behaviour on "ranking fights" to increase as they grow bigger. This is exactly why you should not keep 2 of these fish - as the dominant will batter the subdominant...
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Mats

sorry for the late reply guys,

it's been about 2 weeks now and all pictus appear healthy:)

thanks so much for all the responses anyhow!:)