Auranti Digging?

[-DC-]

Auranti Digging ?

Hey just curious if anyone else experiences this, ever since my auranti settled in and the plant cover settled to make them feel secure they have been much more active,

I noticed they have an interesting habit of moving the sand from the bottom of the tank, up onto the driftwood/rock formations, at first I thought maybe the angle of my filter had blown sand u and settled on top of drift wood,

but I dusted it all off and I know the filter is not stirring up anything, and there is ALOT of sand and pebbles like someone took a bucket and dumped it over top of the driftwood/rock formations,

I haven’t seen them do it but they must scooping mouth full swimming up to the top of the tank, and then spitting it out... and it seems if I clean it off they just do twice as much work the next night lol, I have since stopped dusting off the sand and rocks that they move up on top, it is there home after all I’ll let them do as they wish, just curious if anyone else notices their auranti doing this?

 

[gigas12]

Hi,feeling at home,do not disturb!

 

[tokyogasmask]

Mine do this all the time it is normal.
Of the pair it is usually my male.
I think it has something to do with their natural hunting technique where the build almost like burrows in the mud and await their prey. I think Barca are also known to do this.
Try make sure you don't have sharp or heavy substrate, as before my male dug so hard he cut up hus jaw quite badly.

 

[-DC-]

no i have a mixture of sands up to pea sized, Now that you mention it the "amount of dirt" that get's moved up onto of things increases if I go a few day's between feedings, it's covered now because I was feeding almost strictly shrimp, and i am running low so I picked up some smelt and the little buggers wont eat it, they grab it and spit it out, I’m sure they will come around quickly,

way cant all fish be like my asiatica, those guys eat anything, he even ate veggies once that I put in for the pleco , first he grabbed it, and spat it out, but then when he saw the pleco eating it he must have felt territorial because he dove down and gulped it taking it away from the pleco lol.