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My son received gift of a catfish listed as pimelodela on the reciept. I called the LFS it came from and they said it was a angelicus pimelodella. In doing research, I think it's a pimelodus pictus, the peruvian coloration. The LFS said it will only get a few inches long and should be fine with most other fish. I have a 55 gal. tank that has 6 zebra danios, 6 longfinned lepoard danios, 7 cherry barbs, 3 swordtails, 1 bristle nose pleco, and 6 ghost shrimp. One of the swordtails was hiding the morning after I put the new catfish in the tank. I put it in isolation and it looked like it was missing a bunch of scales on the left side. It died later in the day. Not sure why it died.

I read that they can get up to 4 or 5 inches long in the tank. It's about 3 inches now. Can these fish be agressive? Should I keep this fish or return it to the LFS.

Any advice would be great!

Thanks!

They are actually interesting fish to keep IF you had bigger tankmates. Everything save the bristlenose is likely to be eaten.
They also do best in a small group, and the lone fish was probably showing some displaced aggression.

Thanks!

I going to take this fish back to the LFS and see if I can get something else suitable for my tank. Also, since I'm fairly new at fish keeping love my pleco, is there some other small catfish, say a cory or something else that would be a good tankmate with everything else I have.

If you're going to get corys, get a group of half a dozen or so. They'll be more comfortable that way.

Thanks!

I'm off to the LFS!

So many corys to choose from! With the fish and size of my tank, will an upside down catfish be a good match?

Thanks!

The true upside down down catfish () will work (you have to get a small group like in corys), not the Asian upside down (). You'll have even more of a problem with the latter than with P. pictus.