I have experienced today what I consider very odd parental behavior from some of my Parachromis. I'd be really interested to hear others' thoughts on this or if any of you have seen this type of behavior before. Please don't move this to the Breeding forum. I'm not interested in replies from guppy or Angel owners about their parental behavior. I want to hear from my guapote people.
If you've read any of my threads, you know I have five breeding pairs in my tank (4 Parachromis pairs and an Oscar pair). You can see my stocking in my sig line if you're not familiar with my set up. So, the loiselli pair have free swimming fry a week old. The smaller jaguar pair have wigglers only a couple of days old. Usually the loiselli pair has around 4,000 fry each spawn. This time, their spawn only resulted in about 400 free swimmers. The reason for this is still unclear, there were many more eggs that appeared viable. The smaller jag spawn was normal for all intents and purposes.
Here's the odd part. I turned the lights on in the tank this morning to find the smaller jag pair with only about 30 wigglers left. Both the male and female had some scratching on their faces. I figured someone must've figured them a pushover and got a good snack during the night. I was wrong.
I found the loiselli pair had apparantly stolen most of the jags' wigglers and moved them into their own nest to raise as their own along with their free swimmers. The smaller jag pair must have put up a bit of a fight resulting in the damage to their faces.
Here's the loiselli pair's nest. The smaller whitish/goldish spots are the jags' (now the loisellis') wigglers. The larger greyish spots are the loisellis' free swimmers.
Here's what the jags were left with. You can see the damage to the female's face.
The only thing I've experienced that even comes close is back when my giant male jag paralyzed himself by running into the glass, the other large male jaguar immediately took over parental duties of the hurt jag's fry. So, I guess my questions are have any of you experienced anything like this? Is this behavior as odd as I think it is? Did the loisellis steal the jags' fry because they didn't have their usual giant batch of their own? If not, why would they steal another pair's fry to raise as their own? I'm pretty puzzled over this.
If you've read any of my threads, you know I have five breeding pairs in my tank (4 Parachromis pairs and an Oscar pair). You can see my stocking in my sig line if you're not familiar with my set up. So, the loiselli pair have free swimming fry a week old. The smaller jaguar pair have wigglers only a couple of days old. Usually the loiselli pair has around 4,000 fry each spawn. This time, their spawn only resulted in about 400 free swimmers. The reason for this is still unclear, there were many more eggs that appeared viable. The smaller jag spawn was normal for all intents and purposes.
Here's the odd part. I turned the lights on in the tank this morning to find the smaller jag pair with only about 30 wigglers left. Both the male and female had some scratching on their faces. I figured someone must've figured them a pushover and got a good snack during the night. I was wrong.
I found the loiselli pair had apparantly stolen most of the jags' wigglers and moved them into their own nest to raise as their own along with their free swimmers. The smaller jag pair must have put up a bit of a fight resulting in the damage to their faces.
Here's the loiselli pair's nest. The smaller whitish/goldish spots are the jags' (now the loisellis') wigglers. The larger greyish spots are the loisellis' free swimmers.
Here's what the jags were left with. You can see the damage to the female's face.
The only thing I've experienced that even comes close is back when my giant male jag paralyzed himself by running into the glass, the other large male jaguar immediately took over parental duties of the hurt jag's fry. So, I guess my questions are have any of you experienced anything like this? Is this behavior as odd as I think it is? Did the loisellis steal the jags' fry because they didn't have their usual giant batch of their own? If not, why would they steal another pair's fry to raise as their own? I'm pretty puzzled over this.
