Tapajos weird behavior.. Eating air? Thought he had eggs...

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Chels1289

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 7, 2011
55
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Sunshine Coast, Australia
Well at first I thought that my male tapajos was tumbling eggs in his mouth.

I've never had anything breed before... but my biggest female looked like she wanted to lay this past week. Cleaning a rock and tube down, defending her territory.
But I never saw any eggs.

And last night I noticed that the only boy she seemed to let into her space dug a pit yesterday, and he has his mouth clamped shut, looks like he's chewing with his mouth shut and guarding the pit.
All the others are constantly opening and shutting their mouth but not him.

So watched for a while and after about 10mins he opened his mouth, spat out a huge bubble and swam off opening and shutting his mouth like usual.
Then he swam over to my air stone and gulped a heap of air, clamped his mouth shut again and went back to his pit and looks like he's chewing again. He was back over his pit for about 10mins again with his mouth clamped..
He repeated this all night and still doing it this morning.

What is he doing?!
Someone else on another forum suggested maybe he thinks the bubbles are eggs... Hahah!
Would love to hear some thoughts.. I'm stumped haha
 
I can't answer why he's doing it, but my female G. brachybranchus did this for a while as well. She's always been in a tank with a wet-dry filter and there aren't many bubbles. I moved her to a 55 gallon with sponge filters to try and spawn her, and she spent three days rushing up to my sponges, sucking in bubbles, chewing them, and spitting them out. As they caught her eye she would chase them to the surface. I think she thought they were food or something. :screwy: After a few days she seemed to give up and focus on other things.
 
Haha ok, at least he's not the only one then.
The funny thing is he has been in that tank with that sponge filter for over a year now and he only started doing this yesterday.
Just checked on him and he's still doing it. He's not spitting the bubble out much now. Just chewing for longer periods of time.
Tried to get a video but he didn't spit it for ages and my battery died.
 
maybe he's behaving like dogs do with false pregnancies, except he's tumbling "eggs".
or sneaked a few eggs in there.
 
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