Inter-ray aggression?

Conner · Mar 24, 2010

I was just wondering how many of you have noticed any inter-ray aggression NOT related to mating?

My female has become much more aggressive over the last month or so.

It seems like my female motoro is the most aggressive of the 3 by far. (Female and male are ~8", small male is ~5"). She's the most aggressive eater, and also seems to "mount" the other two the most (as in sitting on top of the others in a dominant manner).

Sometimes it almost seems like she might be trying to bite the larger of the other two rays, her brother.

She mostly is aggressive towards her brother, who is about the same size as she is. She seems to ignore the smaller male, whether because he's smaller or unrelated, I don't know.

Is this pretty common in rays, and is it anything I need to worry about? So far she hasn't caused any actual damage to either of the other two rays, and they are both still eating well and acting/looking normal.

joey02 · Mar 25, 2010

I have a female that is very aggressive as well. She is the smallest in the tank, but is the most dominant. she does most of the topping as well. I link this to her being such an aggressive eater. When i feed more, the aggression stops. So i link this to simply being hungry.
This is not the case in my male, whether i feed him heavely or not, he's always biting a large female(not the dominant smaller female though) That is probely because he is wanting to mate. perhaps he already has.
Try feeding more, or an extra meal a day, and see if that helps. If not, you might just have an aggressive ray.

Conner · Mar 25, 2010

Hmm, I think I feed her pretty well. She probably eats 8-10 earthworms a day by herself... Unfortunately she's only eating earthworms and frozen krill at this point. I'm going to start trying market shrimp again today and see if they'll start eating that. If I can get her on shrimp, I should be able to feed more at a time.

Kolossus · Mar 25, 2010

I've had female aggression, male aggression, small ray aggression, large ray aggression, etc. While feeding may be a fraction of the cause in certain situations with certain rays, some rays are just plain ole mean. I ended up selling a couple nice rays in the past because of aggression. Now, I just have several rays in several tanks so if I did have any problems, I have the ability to move some things around. You can try the food thing but you just may have a "mean ole ray".

FishDog · Mar 25, 2010

Most will agree that females tend to be the most aggressive and bossy. I have only had two males that bit other rays and those were my male jag and my male flower. If you want to see a ray that loves to bite then get a female flower. I have owned a couple and they love to bite out of pure spite. Most of the biting happens at feeding time I have noticed. Or if I walk up to the tank and they think it is feeding time. One feeding I watched the female flower I have now latch onto the rear disk of my mantilla and ride him to the other side of the tank. She hasn't left any marks but that is because she is still small. My old female otorongo and old female flower kept every ray in the tank marked up from bites.

Conner · Mar 25, 2010

Yah, she's definitely bossy. Hopefully it doesn't get too out of hand, and once I get them in a larger tank maybe she'll be a little less aggressive. At least she hasn't been rough enough to leave marks/injuries yet.