Severum Behavior

[Nigelk8485]

I've been watching my severum do this almost daily where he will swim straight up and then dive straight back down. I'm not sure if it's something that should raise flags or just dismiss it as a quirk, it just looks odd because I've never seen any of my other fish in the past do it. He spends a few hours a day doing it.

He isn't bloated at all, he eats like a pig, goes to the bathroom fine. He swims perfectly normal when he isn't doing his dive bombing, nobody in the tank picks on him and he's pretty much the peace maker when my rainbows start going after each other. Water quality is all fine: ammonia-0, nitrite-0, nitrate-5.


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[Gill Blue]

dive bombing how? is he going to cover? diving down to watch the substrate, like it saw something moving on the gravel? could just be playing. young fish can have a good time acting unusual.
could be a thump somewhere else in the house. vibrations carried through the structure of the house can translate into the tank and startle them.

 

[Nigelk8485]

dive bombing how? is he going to cover? diving down to watch the substrate, like it saw something moving on the gravel? could just be playing. young fish can have a good time acting unusual.
could be a thump somewhere else in the house. vibrations carried through the structure of the house can translate into the tank and startle them.

Not going to cover, and not acting like he saw something moving. He stops about an inch or two before hitting the sand and swoops straight back up and repeats. The tank is in the basement and he will do it when I'm the only person here and no noise is being made. Also I feel like if there were a noise startling him the other fish would react in some way. I'll keep an eye on him but I guess for now I will just chalk it up to him playing, he seems to have a good time doing it.


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[FMA4ME]

Lol, my Severum is my only weirdo also!! He gets bored, and I see him trying to swim in a back flip!! Or he'll try backing himself towards my school of red Tetras and try to encourage one of the Tetras to nip his tail fin, which one happily obliges. I wondered about a parasite, but have never seen anything.

 

[tlindsey]

If severum is eating, and know signs of flashing or scratching body on subtrate its probably just amusing itself like was stated earlier.

 

[noside]

Severums are goofy like oscars mine swims all over the glass begging and are constantly up to something.

 

[Allan01230]

this is normal most of my fish will run up and down the glass from time to time. My port acara has been doing this for years

 

[Chicxulub]

Moved to CA/SA

 

[ryansmith83]

Severums are pretty good about running the glass, either side to side or up and down. They will also jump out of the water if they see something of interest on your lid. I constantly hear mine tapping on my glass tops because they think they see a speck of food or a bug. Both chocolates and severums will do that.

As long as he's not gasping at the surface which would signal a water quality issue or lack of oxygen, and as long as he's eating, I'm sure it's fine.