shy upside down catfish

Hello all, I bought a upside down cat, about 6 days ago. and all the little fella dose is hide. I have not seen him at all. I have him in a 35 gal, hexagon stand alone tank, with two ghost cats, a pleco, one highly curious angelfish aka the law of the tank. two dwarf "flame" gouramis. two old fart black skirt tetras (thanks craigslist) one Chinese algae eater and three "x-ray" tetras, as well as three zebra danios aka the greeting committee. I noticed that he was hieing, in the aquarium shop as well and the last upside downs that I had back when I was a kid where highly active. so what gives? is this upside own cat somehow just anti social? my tank is in pristine condition and all the residents are easy going creatures and only have little bickering spats, with one anther, (anyone with gouramis knows what I'm typing about) if just the way this one upside down is OK fine I really do not mind as long as he is not suffering in any way. but if I can bring him out of his shell in any way please people do let me know and thanks in advance. happy fish keeping to all! -Azel

While there are a few different species of Upside Down Catfish, you probably have a Synodontis nigriventris. These guys like dark places and can be pretty active at night too.

If I remember right, they also prefer to be in small groups.

dwarfpike wrote:If I remember right, they also prefer to be in small groups.

Correct! You're best bet to ensure activity would be to have a nice shaded area for the Syno. Too much light will activly stress them out. And I'm sure that it doesn't help having that Angelfish and Gyrinocheilus aymonieri (Chinese Algae Eater) around either. In my experience, those are two of the most aggressive fish I've ever kept. Even little "spats" would be enough to cause your syno to be stressed.

I agree with Bronzefighter, those Chinese Algae Eaters have always been nothing but trouble when I kept them back in the day

you guys might be on to something.I have a lot of "caves and rocks for the night crew and a lot of people have told me that Chinese algae eaters can be nasty but the one I have is quite small about 2in and the angel is honestly very chill, the only time that I have sen him get in any spats with a tank mate is when one of the dwarfs or black skirts crowd his space. and yes I do have the Synodontis nigriventris verity of upside down cat, but I was told that they are Diurnal. so what should I do? my other tank has two, blue gouramis a what appears to be a mentally unstable Congo tetra (I call him twitchy) some neon tetras three bleeding hart tetras(can you tell that I like tetras?) two very chill cory cats and three gold barbs. so do I need to get a couple for friends for him? and remove the Chinese algae eater? I would really like to keep him in the tank he is in as it is already set up to accommodate,fish that are nocturnal.and I will keep in mind that he is shy.  thanks guys for the valuable input by the way!

I would definitely get rid of the chinese algae eater. It will just get more aggressive as it gets larger, and to make things worse, they usually stop eating algae when they get bigger. I'd also grab at least a couple more nigriventris. Keep in mind the CAE might be thinking the catfish is competition.