Loaches Online Forum

I was just going to get ready to do a water change on the tank the sids are in. My one pair of discus is finished their weekly spawning and eating ritual. I noticed some interesting behavior with two of the sids and wondered if anyone else sees this behavior in theirs. They are doing circles, really, really fast circles around each other and part of the circule movements is one touches the others belly at the middle to form a T and they then continue to circle, circle, circle...all the while incorporating this T shape in their little dance. Once in a while the both stop for just a nano second to stand upright in the water side by side then back to the circling. Anybody??

My kubos do that all the time. Particularly just after feeding.

Loaches are so cool!! Thanks for the answer. Just finished the water change. I have to be so careful with the python....the sids like to get real close to it!

This is very common among B. kubotai, and sometimes they'll get B. histrionica into the game. I haven't seen it with sids, but it's probably a harmless ritual to see who's the alpha loach.

Two of my kubs spent 20 minutes doing that tonight.

I witnessed my Botia striatas doing this. It is usually just two of the, but once and awhile, a third tries to join in, it then just turns into three fish swimming around each other.

My Sid's do this occasionally now but they did do it a lot more as I was building up the shoal, I think it is to do with dominance and when two equally matched Sid's start they can really go for it and even grey out to the point they lose every speck of black on their bodies which is an amazing sight.

I've seen my kubs and yoyos do this. I've even seen kubs do it to yoyos and vice versa.

It's just funny to watch. I wonder why they don't get tremendously dizzy! They go so fast I can tell which one is which!