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Ornate pim, Pimelodus ornatus, two in 240 gal

Great looking set of fish.
barb looks like a female Dawkinsia assimilis
If ornate pims are as I think they will be your big one would be female and the smaller ones males but I think someone came up with that hypothesis above and no doubt you too. Nice to see you have a tank with multiple "ornaments" and cover. ? you do keep surprising me!
always great to see someone keeping pim s in these kind of numbers. I only ever had six ( they are £10 each over here) and am unfortunately down to three maybe six years later.
never kept ornates but would love to still, keep finding them too big and hence too expensive.
 
spotfin said:
Nice cats. I added my 3 ornates to the ray tank a couple months ago. Two are 4" and the third is now pushing 6". Purchased them last summer from the Divers Den at Live Aquaria. Free shipping, so they were $33 each.
I have 4 pictus in the same tank that have been there for a few years. They used to squabble a bit amongst themselves, and each one had its own area in the tank. Now that the ornates are in the tank, all 7 cats seem to hang out together under the one piece of drift wood (which they share with the rays). The three ornates are always together, and the pictus now hang close by with them. I find the ornates are a bit more skittish than the pictus.
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That's interesting your Pictus seemed to have mellowed when the Orantes arrived.

When I kept Pictus they also tended to squabble and were territorial with each other.

My Ornates are getting a new tank in December if no delays, may look at trying a group of Pictus again with them.
 
The remaining 5 ornates, 20:20 - 22:30 minutes:

 
I have actually miscalculated, still got 6, not 5, but one has been exhibiting the same symptoms that usually led to the death of the prior 6, namely, strange swimming, curved, as if cramped, body, enlarged and swollen eyes, not feeding, wasting away, losing color, except this guy has been hanging on for like half a year now, it's the light colored one, really pale in the 2nd pic and other pics below. Surprisingly, it started feeding a month or two ago, not like the healthy ones feed but at least somewhat.

I can also report that in my hands they lag way behind their cousins blochii in terms of growth. All but one of them are still small, around 6"-7" whilst blochii would have been 10" by now. They are significantly thinner built vs blochii too and are more skittish but they are far, far more gregarious with each other vs grumpy soloists blochii.

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Our streak continues to hurt. Lost two more of the ornate pims, both around 8" at 6 years old. Four remain.

Gruesome photo of one. The tank mates got to work on the corpse long before I could get it out.

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I think we have actually 5 remaining. Doing alright in the same old 240 gal. As before, one is like 12" and huge girth, probably female, while the other 4 are half the size and skinny, probably males:

 
thebiggerthebetter said:
while the other 4 are half the size and skinny, probably males
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I realize this is an old comment, but would you say those probable males are full grown at that size?
 
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