Aggressive behaviour in Sewellia lineolata - photos!
Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 4:44 pm
Hi all,
On Tuesday evening, we were waiting at the shop for our usual tropical fish shipments to arrive. However, they were later arriving than usual, so in the meantime, I went round having a good look at all the fish in the shop, making sure that everything was ok. When I got to my favourite part - the loach section - the Sewellia lineolata immediately caught my eye. Two of them appeared to be scrapping with each other right out in the open, on top of the sand. I didn't want to disturb them, so I slowly crept up on them, but surprisingly they didn't seem bothered by me at all and carried on. So I went and grabbed my camera and started to take some photos of them, and they continued to ignore me.
They were doing the hillstream 'topping' behaviour now and then, but mostly it seemed to consist of nibbling the flanks of each other. To start with it seemed to be one fish doing all the chasing and nibbling, then after a while, the roles seemed to swap and the other fish became the 'nibbler'. This went on non-stop for over an hour, by which time I really wasn't sure if I should be separating them (they were breathing pretty fast). None of the other Sewellia in the tank got involved, and stayed out of the way on the glass or on the bogwood. I thought they were probably ok, as although the chasing was quite fierce, the actual nibbling looked to be quite gentle. But then just after an hour, I started to see slight marks on the skin of one of them, where the other one was continually nibbling, so I decided I would separate them. However, as soon as I opened the cover slide, they dashed under the bogwood with all the others and got completely mixed up. I decided to let them settle again to see if it started up once more, but nothing happened and we turned the lights off ready for the new fish that were coming in. I have never yet seen the ones at home in the River Tank behave in this manner, and this is the first time any at the shop showed signs of aggression.
There are a lot of photos, so I hope you enjoy them:
Maybe they should kiss and make-up....
Hope you found this interesting,
Emma
On Tuesday evening, we were waiting at the shop for our usual tropical fish shipments to arrive. However, they were later arriving than usual, so in the meantime, I went round having a good look at all the fish in the shop, making sure that everything was ok. When I got to my favourite part - the loach section - the Sewellia lineolata immediately caught my eye. Two of them appeared to be scrapping with each other right out in the open, on top of the sand. I didn't want to disturb them, so I slowly crept up on them, but surprisingly they didn't seem bothered by me at all and carried on. So I went and grabbed my camera and started to take some photos of them, and they continued to ignore me.
They were doing the hillstream 'topping' behaviour now and then, but mostly it seemed to consist of nibbling the flanks of each other. To start with it seemed to be one fish doing all the chasing and nibbling, then after a while, the roles seemed to swap and the other fish became the 'nibbler'. This went on non-stop for over an hour, by which time I really wasn't sure if I should be separating them (they were breathing pretty fast). None of the other Sewellia in the tank got involved, and stayed out of the way on the glass or on the bogwood. I thought they were probably ok, as although the chasing was quite fierce, the actual nibbling looked to be quite gentle. But then just after an hour, I started to see slight marks on the skin of one of them, where the other one was continually nibbling, so I decided I would separate them. However, as soon as I opened the cover slide, they dashed under the bogwood with all the others and got completely mixed up. I decided to let them settle again to see if it started up once more, but nothing happened and we turned the lights off ready for the new fish that were coming in. I have never yet seen the ones at home in the River Tank behave in this manner, and this is the first time any at the shop showed signs of aggression.
There are a lot of photos, so I hope you enjoy them:
Maybe they should kiss and make-up....
Hope you found this interesting,
Emma