Loaches Online Forum

Emma, the dario's are at it again.
the dario's are having a scrap again.
if i can get a couple out i can show you what damage mine do to each other.
these are all full grown fish, and i can't find a reason why they kick-off the way they do.?

i'll try to post a couple of pics later on.

mick
ps, in the mean time here's a pic of one of them before the fighting began.

I am relieved someone else is seeing the aggression level that I witnessed with my group. They are Syncrossus wannabes!

Emma

P.S. Beautiful adult B. dario.

Mick, remind us how many B. dario you are keeping together. As some of you may remember, I had 13 B. dario adults in with my clowns several years ago and they terrorized the clowns (even those significantly bigger than themselves).

Here is a pic of one of the adults:



And here are two of them, greyed out and scrapping:



I never did get any pics of the damage done to the fins of the clowns, but it was quite extensive (and all wounds healed quickly once the B. dario were removed).

Emma

i have 8 adults and three smaller ones, in my tank they only rag each other and leave all the other botias alone.
last time all the biggest of the 8 had damage to the caudal, which in some fish there was'nt alot left of the top lobe and quite alot a scars to the body.

this time it stopped within 30 mins and only one fish had the top lobe damaged and another with a small amount of damage to the dorsal.
i tried to catch the two fish but no chance they just went ballistic dashing round the tank, sorry.

mick
Emma, i hope they all believe us now.

here's a pic i took earlier on when bloodworm went in this fish is at maximum size for darios.


cheers mick

When I kept darios I remember them being somewhat aggressive and territorial. I mean, not to the point of harrassing tank-mates, but they would be feisty little buggers. Definately one of the more territorial species in the Botia genus.

Mike

got 1 pic of the damaged dario before it went into hiding, now you can see the damage they can inflick in a very short time.


mick

This is precisely the sort of damage they did to the caudal and dorsal fins of all my clowns. They obviously gain a lot more confidence in bigger groups and so this behaviour is likely to be more typical for the species when kept as they should be in good sized groups.

Emma

Good point Emma. However I must add that even when I kept them in small groups of 3-4 they exhibited this sort of aggression. Guess thats what you get with them. Great looking fish though!

Mike

Interesting, Mike. I only made that comment because we have discussed the B. dario aggression here many times over the last couple of years, and until Mick said he'd witnessed aggression in his, I was the only one who reported this behaviour. Pretty much everyone else said theirs had been model citizens of the peaceful community tank. It even got to a point where I wondered if anyone really believed what I was saying when I recommended caution when adding B. dario to their tanks! When it was discussed previously, the common factor as it were, was that almost everyone who said they were totally peaceful, were keeping/had kept only small groups (3-5).

Emma

Hmm that is interesting, Emma. Yea I have kept B. dario in small groups and large, and in both instances, aggression was on display. We will get to the bottom of this!..

Mike

Emma Turner wrote:Interesting, Mike. I only made that comment because we have discussed the B. dario aggression here many times over the last couple of years, and until Mick said he'd witnessed aggression in his, I was the only one who reported this behaviour. Pretty much everyone else said theirs had been model citizens of the peaceful community tank. It even got to a point where I wondered if anyone really believed what I was saying when I recommended caution when adding B. dario to their tanks! When it was discussed previously, the common factor as it were, was that almost everyone who said they were totally peaceful, were keeping/had kept only small groups (3-5).

Emma

That leads me to an interesting question. How well do people observe their fish? So not just look at them, but trying to understand what it is they are looking at. How well can they spot signs of aggression?

We happened to talk about that during my current course on animal science. There was this group of five dogs that were fed a law salt diet, but two showed a high excretion of salt in the urine. What was the problem? It was only discovered by observing the dogs from another room, so that the dogs couldn't see the caretaker. Two dog were dominant and bullied the other dogs into throwing up. As is normal for dogs, the two dominant dogs then went and ate an "extra meal".

I would guess that for fish, and maybe even more for fish like loaches that are more comfortable in the dark, it would be hard to observe them properly. I see a difference in the behavior of my kubs when they are not aware of my presence.
My SAE appear peaceful most of the time, but a while back I caught them greyed out and fighting for more than half an hour. Often they'll emerge greyed out from under a big piece of wood. Signs I'm keeping track of as much as I can.

I have 4 in with rostarata and almorhae and apart from the normal little squabbles I have never witnessed any really aggressive confrontations between them, I cant say that I have had any fin damage or scrapes on any of them either

Could it be a sexual thing where the males are battling to be the dominant male and spawn with any female

Hi,
I actually dont know anything about these fish.
But are they like the Skunk Loaches?
Well maybe they might want more places to set up territories.
I may be wrong, and sorry if I am.
mack

Mick, are these of the same batch that Neil bought in a few months ago. I think I got 8 of them, currently housed alone and I have never witnessed any sort of aggression between them Even when they are fed there is very little in the way of scrapping, just 'nudge' like movements to push each other out of the way or the occasional nip when they have their cucumber.......


Ashleigh