Vulture catfish have a fierce reputation and their unique dentition allows them to partition things (as opposed to a majority of catfish that only swallow their prey whole) but from my own experience and from the experience of others on MFK, PCF, etc. they are quite well behaved... at least until they come upon a fish in great distress. The distress has to be great, it appears.
While answering in another thread, I thought this deserves its own thread.
Yellowcat
-- Once they took down a black ear pangasius catfish (they were ~10"-13" and the black ear was ~5"-6") which has had a long-standing string of problems adjusting in a 4500 gal, often freaking out, knocking itself half-conscious, etc. This black ear once found its way into a sump through a drain grate with 1" holes. I had fished it out of the 500 gal prefilter and put it back into the 4500 gal. When passing by in 5-10 min later, I saw the vultures finishing it off. I can only assume that ether they killed it or they attacked it when it was half dead from injuring itself.
(Note that my vultures are always well fed.)
-- When I went to Dayton, Ohio to Gerber's in Mar 2016 for a rescue mission, I've bought a similar sized black ear from there too. Released it into the same 4500 gal. Within an hour (could have been minutes) it was food for the vultures. Again, I didn't catch them kill it, so the same possibility as above remains that the black ear freaked out, knocked itself out / half out and only then the vultures moved in.
In the first case, I've actually released two black ears into the 4500 gal. The other one is still there today, probably ~10", doing relatively well. Used to be a nervous wreck too, just less so than the black ear that perished. It is much better, much, much calmer now.
Black ears IME are as nervous as fish can get. Their common cousin IDS has nothing on them when it comes to skittishness. It is not uncommon for black ears to convulse lying on the bottom and swim around erratically hitting things, jumping out of the water, swimming up side down for some time after just having been released into a new home or after shipping.
I've bought 5 of them.
Sept 2015, two 3" from Sam (fishonlinerus) - both came in half dead and died shortly thereafter in acclimation (albeit now I think they could have simply been overcome with a panic attack and being ignorant of their extreme nervousness I got scared and acclimated them too fast).
A month or so later, another two again from Sam at 4"- successfully acclimated, raised to ~5"-6" in a 240 gal, then transferred into 4500 gal where one perished, one's alive, as described above.
Mar 2016, one ~5" from John Gerber - it perished.
Thus, 1 for 5.
******
So I conclude that the vultures must have taken the two black ears down when those were not able to swim away or defend themselves, because if they had a tooth for black ears, the one doing well right now would not be here.
This is consistent with their reputation as ultimate, indiscriminate, and efficient opportunistic scavengers, such that they even try to scavenge a hooked fish... and even when a hooked fish is pulled out of the water, some vultures don't let go still.
An Opportunistic Scavenger.
**************************************************************
Bad but short video of the vulture 6-pack when they were ~5"-6" (got them at 3"-4" from John Kreatsoulas aka snookn21, Ft. Myers, FL, Aug 2015)
Can see the only surviving black ear and the vultures in 4500 gal here
Can see both here again
And several photos to top it off:
While answering in another thread, I thought this deserves its own thread.
Yellowcat
Wow. Not even guppies! It's consistent though so far with what I saw with my vulture 6-pack. They have been scavengers, not predators for me, except two unlikely but theoretically possible exceptions:
-- Once they took down a black ear pangasius catfish (they were ~10"-13" and the black ear was ~5"-6") which has had a long-standing string of problems adjusting in a 4500 gal, often freaking out, knocking itself half-conscious, etc. This black ear once found its way into a sump through a drain grate with 1" holes. I had fished it out of the 500 gal prefilter and put it back into the 4500 gal. When passing by in 5-10 min later, I saw the vultures finishing it off. I can only assume that ether they killed it or they attacked it when it was half dead from injuring itself.
(Note that my vultures are always well fed.)
-- When I went to Dayton, Ohio to Gerber's in Mar 2016 for a rescue mission, I've bought a similar sized black ear from there too. Released it into the same 4500 gal. Within an hour (could have been minutes) it was food for the vultures. Again, I didn't catch them kill it, so the same possibility as above remains that the black ear freaked out, knocked itself out / half out and only then the vultures moved in.
In the first case, I've actually released two black ears into the 4500 gal. The other one is still there today, probably ~10", doing relatively well. Used to be a nervous wreck too, just less so than the black ear that perished. It is much better, much, much calmer now.
Black ears IME are as nervous as fish can get. Their common cousin IDS has nothing on them when it comes to skittishness. It is not uncommon for black ears to convulse lying on the bottom and swim around erratically hitting things, jumping out of the water, swimming up side down for some time after just having been released into a new home or after shipping.
I've bought 5 of them.
Sept 2015, two 3" from Sam (fishonlinerus) - both came in half dead and died shortly thereafter in acclimation (albeit now I think they could have simply been overcome with a panic attack and being ignorant of their extreme nervousness I got scared and acclimated them too fast).
A month or so later, another two again from Sam at 4"- successfully acclimated, raised to ~5"-6" in a 240 gal, then transferred into 4500 gal where one perished, one's alive, as described above.
Mar 2016, one ~5" from John Gerber - it perished.
Thus, 1 for 5.
******
So I conclude that the vultures must have taken the two black ears down when those were not able to swim away or defend themselves, because if they had a tooth for black ears, the one doing well right now would not be here.
This is consistent with their reputation as ultimate, indiscriminate, and efficient opportunistic scavengers, such that they even try to scavenge a hooked fish... and even when a hooked fish is pulled out of the water, some vultures don't let go still.
An Opportunistic Scavenger.
**************************************************************
Bad but short video of the vulture 6-pack when they were ~5"-6" (got them at 3"-4" from John Kreatsoulas aka snookn21, Ft. Myers, FL, Aug 2015)
Can see the only surviving black ear and the vultures in 4500 gal here
Can see both here again
And several photos to top it off:
