Clown loaches shadowing behaviour in a new tank

[Coryloach]

To revive an old thread but yesterday my clowns were so much into "shadowing" each other that it made my head spinning.....I hadn't seen them "shadowing" so vigorously like that in a year, since last time...

The reason I am posting this is because one of my big females is visibly gravid and the shadowing involved two of the larger males I have not leaving her alone! The males would be around 7 inches, the female 9-10 inches. I have another large non-gravid female and she was left alone!

When the lights are off all loaches would normally come out from the pvc pipe but the males were chasing that large gravid female so much, she kept running into the pvc pipe again and again, to escape them. They'd follow her in but then get kicked out.

The big mama loach then would wait a minute or two, and come out again, only to be chased down into the pvc pipe again. It looked like she hated it but the males weren't leaving her alone...I actually left while they kept doing it because its hard to watch knowing nothing will come out of it....I'd know if anything happened as she'd end up slimmer overnight

This behaviour may have been triggered by a very large 80% + percent water change I did during which I accidentally dropped the temperature down from 26C to 20C. I normally do large water changes but I never drop the temperature..... I also lifted one of my filter's outlets and its been bubbling the surface like a fast river for the last week....

 

[tlindsey]

To revive an old thread but yesterday my clowns were so much into "shadowing" each other that it made my head spinning.....I hadn't seen them "shadowing" so vigorously like that in a year, since last time...

The reason I am posting this is because one of my big females is visibly gravid and the shadowing involved two of the larger males I have not leaving her alone! The males would be around 7 inches, the female 9-10 inches. I have another large non-gravid female and she was left alone!

When the lights are off all loaches would normally come out from the pvc pipe but the males were chasing that large gravid female so much, she kept running into the pvc pipe again and again, to escape them. They'd follow her in but then get kicked out.

The big mama loach then would wait a minute or two, and come out again, only to be chased down into the pvc pipe again. It looked like she hated it but the males weren't leaving her alone...I actually left while they kept doing it because its hard to watch knowing nothing will come out of it....I'd know if anything happened as she'd end up slimmer overnight

This behaviour may have been triggered by a very large 80% + percent water change I did during which I accidentally dropped the temperature down from 26C to 20C. I normally do large water changes but I never drop the temperature..... I also lifted one of my filter's outlets and its been bubbling the surface like a fast river for the last week....

Anything is possible .

 

[Coryloach]

Ha, ha...who knows... All we can do is observe and try....

 

[Coryloach]

After some extra time spent at observing the clowns today at lights on I saw two very weird encounters.

First one.....Around lunch time one of the middle sized clowns was standing just outside the pvc pipe. There's is a clay pot opposite the pvc pipe entrance. The clown sat there near the clay pot and nipped at the belly/pelvic area almost any clown that came out of the pvc pipe. A lot of them came out and went back in. The ordeal lasted about 5 minutes only.

The offending clown was very slightly greyed out, with all fins perked up/erected and the "nipping" at the pelvic area ended up in a small scratch on one other clown, larger than the offender in size. The two got involved in a very brief dance, the offender "nipping" the other on the side, right in the middle, belly area.

If this was a dominance fight, it lasted very short, none of the clowns was very greyed out, just a bit and the last time I ever saw mine involved in any sort of fight was 6 years ago, when I first bought my first 5 clown loaches....That fight then lasted hours and the clowns went green/grey...

So I am not sure what was all that about but it involved one clown loach picking fights with a lot of others.

Later on, everything seemed to have calmed down, or so I thought. There were a few middle sized loaches just sitting outside the pvc pipe.Then there goes one of my old corydoras, persistently "eating" something from one of the clowns pelvic/anal area. The clown didn't pay much attention and kept sitting, the corydora kept "eating" at the clown's anus? Then the clown shook of the corydora. A few seconds later the corydora goes back and keeps "eating" something at the clowns rear?

As odd as that sounds I've seen exactly the same thing years ago but the other way round. When my clowns were babies my corydoras used to spawn big time every other day. The clowns would chase the corys and try eating the eggs while the females were still carrying them around in their pelvic fins trying to find a good spot to lay them....

With that difference, there's no eggs.....So what was that cory eating?

All this above didn't involve any of my large female clowns by the way....

I can't wait for the light to turn off, as that's when the clowns do the shadowing the most.

Tomorrow, I intend to do another rather large water change and I'll lift up the outlet of another filter....see what happens.....