Norton Aquatics: Content / Catfish / Angelic Pim

Angelic Pim - Pimelodus pictus

A graceful, constantly active catfish. These sleek and long-whiskered cats have proven very popular for medium to large community aquariums.

This attractive, scaless catfish is mostly nocturnal but is quite active during the morning and early evening (crepuscular) as well.

A mostly solitary catfish, it originates from the Amazon and Orinoco River Basins in Colombia, South America and prefers water with a strong current. Even though most specimens are wild caught, this beauty is quite adaptable to most tropical parameters.

It is best to avoid extremes, such as very hard or very soft water and over-, under-heating your aquarium as these fish have no scales on their body and are very sensitive to bacterial and parasitic diseases such as White Spot (see Diseases).

Plenty hiding spaces should be added so that this fish can hide during the day and the other tank-mates to hide in at night as this fish can easily disturb other fish in its nightly travellings

The Angelic Pim is a full omnivore, relishing both meat and vegetation equally but has a preferance for small live foods as most long-whiskered catfish do. They tend to 'out-race' fellow tank-mates for food thus the hobbyist should ensure that enough food is distributed evenly between all the tank mates - this is easily done by placing the food at two different areas of the aquarium. and adding extra food at the place that the Pim is not eating at.

Pims grow to 13cm (5") very quickly and need a lot of space to swim in, thus a minimum tank size of 1.8m (6 foot) is needed for a minimum group of 6 individuals.

Beware of the spines in the dorsal and pectoral fins when handling the Pim, these spines are sharp enough to pierce human skin and become easily stuck in fine-mesh netting.

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