Pike behavior question.

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robmcd

robmcd

Goliath Tigerfish
MFK Member
Jan 19, 2007
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Laguna Beach
As I was staying at my house in Baja Cal (mexico) for a month I did a bunch of reading. One day I busted out my good old ragged copy of Dr. H.R. Axelrods Atlas of Freshwater Aquarium fish. As I was reading the small paragraph or so describing pike cichlids, Dr. Axelrod described crenicichla behavior in the wild as, and Im quoting the book, "They (crenicichlas) attack and devour other fishes, and in their natural range and habitats they travel in packs of a few dozen to attack schools of carachins that occur in the same areas."
If this is true, then why are they so prone to pummell each other to death in captivity? Is this outdated info? I was left a little perplexed, and thoughts of a pack of Lents bum rushing a shoal of little Prochilodus kept going through my head.
Has any of you all ever seen or heard of this kind of behavior with crens? Just curious.
Oh yeah, as much as I love to be down there relaxing and having a good time, I missed this place and its good to be back. Thanks to my bro Timmy for keeping my fish fed and tanks in order, props homie. But you are a bastard for downloading limewire (for the PORN no doubt), infecting my desktop with more viruses than Ive ever seen, and crashing it. I guess thats what friends are for....
 
I have never seen any "pack" behavior from adult pikes. Of course, I have not seen them in the wild, so I could be wrong. I have seen juvi pikes school around in big tanks, but I think almost all young fish like to do that.
 
Check out the Discovery Channel/BC show on the Amazon, pt4 or 5. They have 1 shot of a group of Marms (I think) in a lake formed from the rainy season. It was quite a few (20+) just chillin together. They had good space between them which can happen in a (typical) home aquarium.

buy a big pool, throw in some wood and sand/dirt. then ask sellers to get in 15+ of a pike and throw 'em in.:popcorn: dont forget a nice deck and shade...
 
Taz2478;1003858; said:
Check out the Discovery Channel/BC show on the Amazon, pt4 or 5. They have 1 shot of a group of Marms (I think) in a lake formed from the rainy season. It was quite a few (20+) just chillin together. They had good space between them which can happen in a (typical) home aquarium.

buy a big pool, throw in some wood and sand/dirt. then ask sellers to get in 15+ of a pike and throw 'em in.:popcorn: dont forget a nice deck and shade...
Click to expand...
Where can I go to see these episodes online? Does Discovery have on demand services? I do plan on building a nice size pond, the deck sounds like a cool idea. And trust me, there aint gonna be any Koi or goldfish in it, just SA/CA cichlids, big ones. And you know how I likes my pikes. Just wish I could keep more than 1 per tank. Gonna try it with the 240 Im fin to buy, just start with 5 juvis and grow them up together.
 
My X1 is still a pushover,my Sveni is more agro.But they will never get the chance to kill each other.Be cool if they just got big and fat and old together.
 
Well look at it this way, in the wild there is an INFINATE amount of space around them, allowing them to evade the aggressors, keep a respectable distance, and even benefit each other working in groups. In an enclosed system, such as your tanks, this is greatly reduced. There is less room, harder to avoid aggression, and so on. If you could get a TRUELY large tank, it might be able to be pulled off. Generally though, its typically the juv. and subadults that stay in the larger groups, both for protection, feeding, and finding a mate. I've never been to the Amazon though, so its kinda hard to determine an accurate answer.
 
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