Zebrina - 1st Day Behavior

[Potato Patatto]

I found a 6.5 inch Zebrina available and decided to pull the trigger seeing how much everyone raved about their personalities and obviously their colors. I have a 125 with decent wood/plant coverage that I’m planning to continue expanding. He’s by far the biggest in the tank, kept only with a few 3-4 inch bichirs, a plethora of neon tetras and some African butterfly fish. Aka he’s by far the biggest and baddest in the tank yet he won’t come out of hiding. I’ve gotten him to eat some blood worms. Filtration/current is good with an FX6.

He arrived today after about 24 hours of shipping and was properly acclimated. Am I overreacting and just needs to adjust? He’s shown some aggression to the bichirs if they get near his cave.

Guess I don’t have much of a choice other than to wait out, add some more plants, and hope for the best? I know it sounds dumb but if it persists would adding another pike or Cichlid species help bring him out?

 

[ryansmith83]

It can take cichlids days to weeks to fully recover from shipping stress and being relocated to a new tank. I’ve had adult pikes, Heros, and discus refuse food for two weeks. Healthy fish will eat when they settle in and decide they’re hungry.

Consider that this fish is not familiar with you or your tank setup. It will take time for it to familiarize itself with the new surroundings and feel comfortable. Also note that it has small tankmates, and not many of them. I’ve found that cichlids feel more comfortable if they see other larger, active fish out and about.

Do you value the other fish in the tank? This is a pike, after all. It’ll likely eat the tetras and may go after the other fish as well.

 

[Potato Patatto]

From a financial aspect no other fish matters like the pike lol although I’d prefer it didn’t eat the bichirs as they are my favorite and I’ve been looking forward to raising them out.. hoping I can grow them out to 6-8 inches as fast as possible so they aren’t on the menu. The tetras are for a schooling affect if possible, if they die they die it’s not a major loss. I was thinking it being the only large fish/Cichlid it would feel comfortable. Do you have suggestions as to what to pair it with?

 

[Rocksor]

Don't pair with like bodied fish. Yeah, not another pike, unless you don't mind losing the new pike. At such an early time, it's already showing aggression towards the bichirs. It can go bad for the bichirs once it gets more comfortable. They are the perfect shape for being eaten. It took my 6" Atabapo roughly 4 weeks to get comfortable and start taking bloodworms. Yeah don't worry if it takes that long. They can survive that long without showing a sunken belly. Being a pike, they do come from streams that have really have high flow, which keeps them at their perfect torpedo shape. How high? Well, if you go snorkeling, you would have to hold on just to stay still. The bichirs don't like that.

Also, being wild caught, you should deworm with Prazipro and Levamisole HCL.

 

[Gunfleet]

after he lowers your bioload by eating all everything in the tank under 3 inches, try adding some silver dollars to the tank. They are the wrong shape for him to eat and will draw him out into the open since they are always out.

 

[Rocksor]

I hate silver dollars because they make my fish jumpy. I have my tank in the living room where I have the television. There's always traffic near the tank. SD's jumped at everything, even loud noises. This would always spook my cichlids. Removed the SD's, and now my cichlids are calm and don't jump unless someone bangs on the tank.

 

[Potato Patatto]

Update: He’s relaxing a bit, starting to come out a little more but not fully exposing himself. I haven’t seen him do anything to the bichirs besides some open mouth warnings to get away from his area. However my smallest bichir is a 2.5 inch lapradei who loves to sit in front of his cave (gives me some serious agita) but the pike gave up on trying to move him so I feel better.

Something going on with the tetras though. I know I had about 33-34 tetras last night, lost 5 or so throughout the week. But I woke up this morning to no more than 15 tetras. The bichirs have been eating blood worms and some ghost shrimp in the tank so I can’t imagine they did that much damage to the tetras in that period of time. This leads me to believe the pike did during the night? Just seems odd it would wait till now?

 

[ryansmith83]

It’s typical for cichlids to do that at night. Even discus will hunt and eat tetras at night.

It’s not really that odd that it waited. The more comfortable that it gets, the more bold and aggressive it’s going to get. That’s how pikes are. My lugubris pikes were mild-mannered initially, but after several weeks they started to attack other fish, and then eventually turned on each other. Once a pike gets pushy and belligerent and starts trying to eat everything small enough to fit in his mouth, it means he’s feeling like his old self again.

 

[Potato Patatto]

I think he hate my ornate bichir ? biggest of the group too.. can’t find him and the pikes stomach looks thick

 

[Gunfleet]

Pike cichlid is gonna pike cichlid. That's what they are good at.