head bobbin' regani?

[softturtle]

I was watching the tanks the other day and I seen a little action in the dwarf tank. So, I pull up a chair and observed them for a while. The two female Cr. regani were flaring and lip locking (and coloring up very nice ). In between their bouts of lip locking they would stop, flare their gills, and rapidly begin to shake/bob their heads up and down (kind of how lizards bob their heads). After watching this for a while, they seemed to be settling their disputes with these head bobbing actions instead of actual combat. As soon as they would get close to each other they would bob their heads and move away instead of just grabbing on to each others mouths. Crenicichla communication?

Has anybody else ever seen this before?

 

[Pirwhana]

cool! Seems similar to what my lucius does to his reflection!!

 

[softturtle]

Yeah, it is fun to watch. Another thing I noticed is that when they are doing this, they tend to go into a "head down, tail up" position. I wish I knew how to upload video clips...

 

[MTN PIKE]

BOBBLE-HEAD PIKES? We've seen similar assertive behavior ~ sounds like they're establishing a 'pecking order' - female dominance. Any males in the tank? Other fish? Some female Pikes seem way more aggressive than their male counterparts, and more curious/outgoing. Good luck with your regani, there are a lot of variants - some brilliantly colored. Be glad if they stop the lip-locking, the shaking & posturing is less damaging.

 

[softturtle]

Its funny you said bobble head pikes... thats the first thing I think when I see a Crenicichla acting tough. hahaha

Yeah, there is one male in the tank. And he's at the bottom of the pecking order right now. So he stays to himself. One female will not tolerate him on her side of the tank, but the other doesn't mind as much. I might remove the aggressive female soon. We'll see... I'm gonna let this play out for a little while.

 

[Peanut_Power]

Just look up my Lessons In Pike Aggression thread........its got a video of my pikes showing that type of aggression. Its relatively common if you have multiple pikes in a tank, as they DO need to set up a level of dominance, which is often challenged.