beaten up catfish and neons

[Badgirlz]

I have a 50 gal tank in my store. Like a lot of people starting out I errored in buying fish. I bought a blue botia. Just 1 because I didn't know any better and the fish store gave me bad advice.

After the purchase I began to research and discovered they don't like to live alone and will become aggressive. I've been trying for over 4 months now to get me some more Blue Botias but keep coming up empty handed. Removing him from the tank isn't a good option. My tank is well planted and I'd have to destroy it to get to the fish.

My poor Valentine Catfish (he's about 4 inches) who used to live in the boat ornament with the Botia, has felt the Botia's wrath.

2 Weekends ago I bought 3 more Petricola Catfish because I learned that those too need their own company. They are tiny but expensive.

That Monday I came in and the Valentine looked like he'd been in a war and lost. He had bite marks all over him and he's missing the lower part of his tail. So sad to see.

I called a fish store and they felt it was the Botia's doing, not the new catfish because they are too small to do damage. They told me the pecking order had been disrupted and will settle down again. Which it has.

He now looks like he's going to lose his tail. It's all white at the base and getting thinner.

Will it fall off? Will he die without a tail? Can they swim with no tail?

My second question is with a tank I have at home.

I have 2 Raffael Catfish in a 20 gal. I also had some Zebra Danios and Harlequin Rasboras. I'm now down to 3 Rasboras and think the Raffs are the culprits.

I really like small colourful fish and bought 6 Neons and 6 Glowlight Tetras. I now have 4 Neons and 5 Glowlights after 4 days since purchase.

Would I be a terrible person if I keep buying Neons knowing that they will most likely get eaten? I'm not a cold blooded person at all but I figured that my 3 Rasboras have lived this long so it must be possible to outfox the catfish.

Does anyone know of any other colorful schooling fish that I could add that won't turn into snacks?

[spark740]

Maybe you should stick with simpler species. If some fish in my tank are causing problems (esp. those expensive ones) I'll take em back to another pet store....."Hey do ya want to trade these fish for those fish and so on and so on...." Soooooooo whos eating the neons?????

Your Valentine has finrot theres probably nothing you can do about it now, but putting fish who arent adversally affected yet in a tank with lots Cycle (that stuff works MIRACLES!) It should heal the fish. Once my guppy got that, I put him in a tupperware container on the windowsill with alot of aqua plus and cycle in it and despite the bad choice of the sick tank, he got better and his tail was even longer than before!

You can keep those tetras with guppies, platies, swordtails, corydoras, etc. If you want bigger fish swordtails are the best choice.