I know that scraping and glancing off objects can be a sign of disease. But, after watching some of my fish it seems they "mark" a certain area. If it was disease I feel the glancing would be more random and this doesn't seem to be. Most of my SA/CA are social and it seems reasonable that this happens. Anyone have any opinions or facts to back this up? Or is this already common knowledge?
Do fish mark territory?
- Thread starter Bobears
- Start date
Yeah that is ringing a bell with me for malawis, but havent read any extensive literature on it, and havent seen it, think I was told it once lol
I've seen this behavior in a few species I have--most notably the varying cichlids (including my Malawi Peacocks before I lost most of them), my clown knife does around the sevs and snooks; my gold gourami does around the tiger barbs. No idea if they have scent glands or leave skin cells or scales, but it's definitely a purposeful behavior.
When I first got into africans I had a tank of Mbuna and the larger two would do it every once in a while.
I thought they had parasites but I never found anything to be wrong with them.
I thought they had parasites but I never found anything to be wrong with them.
do you mean just scraping them selfs on things or moveing them i've seen many cichlids do this mainly they scrape them selfs against things as a sign of stress if you mean moveing things around then yes many large cichlids do this to cichlids like midas and parachromis move things around to make territorys
killerfish;1799365; said:
No. I meant literally rub against something, almost like a dominance display. I thought about stress. It seemed a little unlikely to me since fish seem to shut down as much as possible when stressed, unless they're trying to escape.
Id consider this theory if you are positive there is no disease or water isssues in the tank but in my experience which isnt a great deal scraping on objects is usually a sign of irritation caused by water quality or illness
They have their individual territories for sure, usually most notably displayed in cichlids. I'm not sure if they would mark a tree like a bear does, or any other animal with secretions.