Pachypterus atherinoides behaviour

[FatCatDoorMat]

Hi all. I recently got 6

Pachypterus atherinoides

. They are interesting little buggers for sure, currently around the 2inch mark. They are in a 15 gallon quarantine, and started eating sinking pellets from day one. Seeing their feeding behaviour, I was thankful these weren't

Pachypterus khavalchor

, lest they start taking out chunks from other fishes' body. However, my assurance quickly turned into despair as a 2.5inch

Ompok pabda

that was with them in the qt had an eye missing. I relocated the

Pachypterus

at first in a planted community until further arrangements could be made, but they grazed on the scales of several fish like a very efficient lawn mower to the point there were flesh wounds. I then returned them to their holding tank and relocated the

Ompok

instead, who isn't really bothered by a missing eye and has healed properly. The other victims are healing alright, but my initial plan was to set up a 4feeter with

Ompok

and

Pachypterus

which doesn't seem to be a good plan right now. Has anyone seen such behaviour from these fish? Someone had mentioned they were light fin nippers but I never imagined these would take inspiration from

Chanda nama

and turn every fish scaleless. Or for that matter, attack the eyes of other catfish.

[Silurus]

Adult P. atherinoides have the strongly projecting upper jaw and exposed teeth you see in P. khavalchor, which led me to think that all Pachypterus are scale-eaters.

[FatCatDoorMat]

Adult P. atherinoides have the strongly projecting upper jaw and exposed teeth you see in P. khavalchor, which led me to think that all Pachypterus are scale-eaters.

I feel like lepidophagy would not be as bothersome in the wild as the victims would just be passing by and inconvenienced only for a short time, but in the confines of an aquarium it is the same victim everyday so the damage will accumulate, ultimately killing off the fish. However the thing is they are always well fed and on a very varied died of frozen, live and pellets so it is puzzling they would repeatedly go for the scales (and in one case, the eye) of other fish.

[naturalart]

In that case shouldn't the verbiage in the 'compatibility' section of it's data sheet be updated?

[Bas Pels]

Adult P. atherinoides have the strongly projecting upper jaw and exposed teeth you see in P. khavalchor, which led me to think that all Pachypterus are scale-eaters.

I feel like lepidophagy would not be as bothersome in the wild as the victims would just be passing by and inconvenienced only for a short time, but in the confines of an aquarium it is the same victim everyday so the damage will accumulate, ultimately killing off the fish. However the thing is they are always well fed and on a very varied died of frozen, live and pellets so it is puzzling they would repeatedly go for the scales (and in one case, the eye) of other fish.

Not knowing anything about these fish, I can only refer to behavioral stdies done with cats. As anyone knows, they like chasing mice, even when not hungry.

It could well be that, similarily, the lepidophagy is a behaviour they "enjoy" and therefore keep doing this.