I constantly find myself scratching my head at certain things my cichlids do. In the past week, I have seen really unusual behavior from my notatus severums.
I have been keeping my wild Heros notatus pair in my 150 gallon community. They spawn weekly and wreak havoc on their tankmates. Last week, while sitting on eggs, the male and female got particularly rough with one another and the female beat the male pretty badly. I decided to remove him from the tank and put him in my 210 gallon with my psittacus, Geos, and a trio of Atabapo severums. As soon as I netted the wild male, one of his F1 sons that I raised from a spawn last year stepped in. He immediately turned dark and started helping the female fan and protect the eggs. This fish has never spawned before or shown any interest in the other F1 females I kept. When the fry hatched, he helped the female move the wrigglers and then guarded them for another several days until they were picked off by tankmates. I'd never seen a severum step in and be a surrogate to a batch of eggs that it didn't spawn, especially since the fish had no prior history of parental care.
Now the wild male notatus that I removed is in my 210 gallon. The Atabapo pair spawned last week as well and released their free-swimming fry that they'd been mouthbrooding. The notatus immediately turned dark and started herding the fry away from the Atabapos, which they didn't respond well to. They proceeded to beat my poor notatus up again. It's nothing major -- a few torn fins and some missing scales. It's been about three days now and he's still trying to guard the fry along with the Atabapo pair. They've backed off a bit and are tolerating him, so on one half of my 210 I have the Atabapo pair and the lone male notatus all raising 1/4" fry together. It's the most bizarre thing I've ever witnessed.
I figured we could use this thread to document some of the odd, uncharacteristic things our fish do.
I have been keeping my wild Heros notatus pair in my 150 gallon community. They spawn weekly and wreak havoc on their tankmates. Last week, while sitting on eggs, the male and female got particularly rough with one another and the female beat the male pretty badly. I decided to remove him from the tank and put him in my 210 gallon with my psittacus, Geos, and a trio of Atabapo severums. As soon as I netted the wild male, one of his F1 sons that I raised from a spawn last year stepped in. He immediately turned dark and started helping the female fan and protect the eggs. This fish has never spawned before or shown any interest in the other F1 females I kept. When the fry hatched, he helped the female move the wrigglers and then guarded them for another several days until they were picked off by tankmates. I'd never seen a severum step in and be a surrogate to a batch of eggs that it didn't spawn, especially since the fish had no prior history of parental care.
Now the wild male notatus that I removed is in my 210 gallon. The Atabapo pair spawned last week as well and released their free-swimming fry that they'd been mouthbrooding. The notatus immediately turned dark and started herding the fry away from the Atabapos, which they didn't respond well to. They proceeded to beat my poor notatus up again. It's nothing major -- a few torn fins and some missing scales. It's been about three days now and he's still trying to guard the fry along with the Atabapo pair. They've backed off a bit and are tolerating him, so on one half of my 210 I have the Atabapo pair and the lone male notatus all raising 1/4" fry together. It's the most bizarre thing I've ever witnessed.
I figured we could use this thread to document some of the odd, uncharacteristic things our fish do.
