During my weekly cleaning of my tanks, I was observing my fish to see if everyone of them is doing well. I was moving some fish around to different tanks when I notice that 2 of my 3" blue dolphins dove right into the sand and disappeared. At first I thought they were hiding around my driftwood or the rocks. Then I got annoyed and removed all the decoration and they were nowhere to be found. Until I hover my net near the area where they were hiding and POP he just showed up again. Is this a defensive way to avoid predator in the wild because it was pretty cool! Once I found out, I chased them with the net again and they did drove right in the sand.
Blue dolphin hiding in sand?
- Thread starter Mrlalomoua
- Start date
I should of done that but i was too worried about putting too much stress on them lol. I will do it next time. But only the small ones does this because i have a 4" and a 5" one and they do not do this at all. I will do a video on my next water change lol
I have a similar but still different behaviour with mine. my dominant blue dolphin does something like that, he turns sideways then dives headfirst intho the sand and immediately comes back out. I assume it's some sort of display since the non dominants never so it
I haven't seen this from the adult blue dolphins yet but only in julvies around 3" or lower. It could be a display too. This is why they are an interesting fish to keep. However, I had one bad experience with this tho. My uncle gave me my first blue dolphin and he was 3" and I performed a full water change along with rinsing out all my sand (I usually do this when the tank has too much algae since my parents only want the tank in front of the window). I couldnt find him and thought that he jumped out of my tank and died until it was too late when I added tap water into the tank. I did not realized that they can stay under the sand for 20 mins or so when i had the original water inside the tank. Now i just need a video lol
It is a natural defense thing for cichlids to do. They will hide in the sand when they feel threatened. I agree a video would be very cool.
