New Sewellia Behavior

[mikev]

What you see on the picture has been added to my tank today.
This hillstream tank also has a couple of young BN's and the male has been treating the other BN pretty badly lately...so per advice of the pleco people I've added a cave for him.

Well, the male BN checked the place and quickly lost interest in it. Not so with Sewellias. They have been in-and-out all day today, when the picture was taken, there were another two inside.
Beaufortias, in the same tank, are not interested in the least. Actually, logical.

--

It also appears that Sewellias need about 2 weeks to settle in the tank. They were very nice initially, quitely sitting on the glass and being very careful. Gliding started around day 10 in the tank. Today they are nuts, gliding all over the place, and chasing each other.

[Jim Powers]

I have a cave in the tank with my Seweillias. I made it out of four pieces of rainbow slate. One for the top, one for the bottom and two small pieces on each side. The Sewellias almost immediately took up residence. They often sit on the top or the bottom floor, or hang upside down on the ceiling.

[Martin Thoene]

I've got a ceramic one in my tank as well. Only one of the females seems to go in it.

Martin.

[mikev]

Aha. So this is what they need.

They don't use the floor in my cave, probably because it is just gravel. But I could see the tails hanging from the ceiling. And they enter/exit using bending over the top of the opening only.

Your slate is probably a better idea: it looks like they are having problems sharing the cave (the largest alternatively allows others to come in and chases them out.)

Interesting stuff. They are providing lots of entertainment today.

[Jim Powers]

One may be on the top of the cave and one inside, but never two on top or two in the cave. They just won't tolerate that .

[mikev]

One may be on the top of the cave and one inside, but never two on top or two in the cave. They just won't tolerate that .

Not yet (I saw 3 in, and 3 on today), but I think it is going this way.

The tank already looks like a madhouse. They are chasing each other, Beaufortias as chasing each other, plecos are chasing each other.... Crossostoma is the only peaceful fish at the moment (and very scared...)

[Emma Turner]

I added a coconut shell cave with java moss growing on the top of it to my River Tank a short while ago. The Sewellia lineolata (not the spotties) seemed to initially check it out, but that didn't last long. I rarely see anything in there now. The other day one of the Schistura balteata was sat inside with just it's head poking out, but that appears to be a one-off because it's empty again now.

Emma

[Emma Turner]

Ha! I spoke too soon :



Emma

[Graeme Robson]

Yeah Loaches often make liars out of us!

I always seem to have a particular one specimen that likes cover, compared to the others.

[mikev]

A few comments on Sewellia, some referring to what has been said on other threads but I'm no longer sure where....

1. The cave was a total failure. Neither Sewellias nor Plecos care about it.

2. Jim was correct when he predicted that the madhouse here was temporary, it lasted only a day. I think I caused it by adding the cave, moving things around, and adding female Sewellia's to a mostly male group -- all in one day. Since then, only the normal level of hillstream interaction.

3. (On some other thread) I've asked about the differences in the female Sewellia behavior. I'm fairly certain now that it is real, at least in the initial period. I've been checking positions of the fish in the tank every time I approach it, and for the first ten days, the females were always in the back; the sole exception was when I just turn on light. After about ten days, the differences between the behavior of the sexes disappeared, now the females are equally likely to be on the front glass.

4. Even more pronounced was the behavior of the next group of Sewellia's in the q-tank. The group of 3 females and 1 male was quarantined together with 6 zippers... I expected Sewellia's to survive the quarantine on the walls. However, what happened was that zippers formed a "knot" with female Sewellia's mostly inside of it, while the male Sewellia was the only fish lonely sitting on the tank wall. It was really bizarre to see so dissimilar fish bundling together...

5. It appears to me that Sewellia takes longer than any other sucker to fully adjust to the tank. It took more than a month for them to start challenging other fish (Beaufortias, Crossostoma)... I saw this only in the last couple of days. The other change noticed is that now some of them they actively eat with the light on, they used to wait until dark.