catfish aggression

[svetlana]

Just an interesting observation. 2 weeks ago i took in 2 severums to go along with my jack dem. and the Synodontis eupterus catfish (gorgeous one). JD became much more sociable and dom. the severums. No surprise here. But my peaceful catfish became more straitforward: he can attack any of the severums by ramming into them. They are not pleased and trying to avoid the confrontation but sometimes bite back. I never saw any kind of aggression coming from catfish before.
Are there any other? Have you seen it?

I'm not alarmed though, b/c it's very lazy crosstalk - no body or ego damage yet.

 

[wayne]

I have seen a lot of catfish aggression though normally eupterus are pretty steady. But a lot of free swimming cats are quite hideous predators, with very large mouths.
If you ask most fishkeepers what they think the most aggressive fish are you get normal stock answers of some big cichlids, piranhas and so on. But ask some of the real oddball specialists and you'll find catfish starting to creep in in big numbers. The most aggressive is reputedly Mystus wyckii

 

[svetlana]

Very interesting, thanks for the information!

--s