How do you know if your caudo is stressed? Look for the stripes.
When healthy and displaying normal colors, caudos will have no discernible color pattern. However, if you notice a caudo near its shell and you see some faint stripes, it’s bothered (see photo above) by something. Most of the time, these stripes are indicative of a stressor unrelated to behavior, aggression, or illness. So what might cause it? One clear stressor might be YOU. If you’re near the tank and perhaps moving too quickly near the tank, you might see stripes. If you’re doing water changes, cleaning your tank, or otherwise conducting some kind of maintenance, your caudo might also display a stress pattern.
My caudos sometimes have striping when I am near their tank. In the photo above, I had just completed a water change. How do I know it’s not the water that I’m adding that is causing the stress? I don’t, but the striping always disappears AFTER I complete the water change and move away from the tank. That would suggest that the ACT of adding the water is the problem rather than the water itself.
In any case, with time you will learn to correlate your caudos striping with certain activities.