we’ve all seen this, but how does he do it?
His dats are all staying Stable no matter what.. It’s insane to me
His dats are all staying Stable no matter what.. It’s insane to me
why and how are these Datnoides always stable
- Thread starter mjjavelosa
- Start date
I personally never read or heard of a aggressive Datnoid although they do have a pecking order unlike Cichlids the Datnoid is more mild in behavior.
So a few things come to mind.. Back when I was keeping 10+ IT at any given time I observed that my dats were more stable than not far more often than other instances where I kept dats singularly or in much smaller groups. Your could chalk this up to some sort of pecking order behavior similar to say pea puffers or to some extent African cichlids, both of which typically show much less aggression the more you add to the school. You sort of reach a plateau where eventually the distribution of aggression gets spread so thin you reach an almost unspoken understanding where everyone keeps each other in line with little to no lashing out. I'm not 100% sure of that for datnoids but I think there could be something to it.
Another possible factor that I put a bit more weight on is the camouflage theory. Again in my own experiences, datnoids seem to be more likely to remain stable in environments that are more natural with at least some some plants and greenery or are simply brighter. I think of it like this, datnoids are perch-like fish and are ambush predators and like other ambush predators are generally more comfortable when their basic needs for survival are met (where they can ambush food), even more so when you consider that probably 99% of datnoids (depending who and what you believe) are wild caught so it's not like this behavior can be radically changed or bred out of them from the time they're born, scooped out of a river and shipped to a wholesaler, fish store then your tank. I think it's reasonable to believe the stability question is largely based in their genetics and the environment they're placed in largely dictates which way it goes.
Mostly empty bare bottom tank with little to no cover, black background and not particularly bright lights? Unstable blends in more.
Bare bottom tank with large root-like driftwood and roots from the pathos(?) and ample bright light on a light blue background. Seems like stable and using those stripes to blend with the wood and roots would hide you a lot better than being a big dark spot in an otherwise very well lit and bright tank.
That's the way I tend to look at it anyway and obviously there are other factors that could be brought up such as Sumatran IT color and stability variation, different species of datnoids and stability (IT, ST, NGT, NTT, AT), and so on though generally this conversation only covers IT which I think may leave out a lot to think about.
If anyone has any thoughts or disagrees with any of this I would really love to hear and talk about it and hear anyone out. I lost my last datnoid about a week ago and I'm sadly taking a break from my favorite fish of almost 10 years so anything to keep me in the tigerfish game while I'm temporarily away would be great!
Another possible factor that I put a bit more weight on is the camouflage theory. Again in my own experiences, datnoids seem to be more likely to remain stable in environments that are more natural with at least some some plants and greenery or are simply brighter. I think of it like this, datnoids are perch-like fish and are ambush predators and like other ambush predators are generally more comfortable when their basic needs for survival are met (where they can ambush food), even more so when you consider that probably 99% of datnoids (depending who and what you believe) are wild caught so it's not like this behavior can be radically changed or bred out of them from the time they're born, scooped out of a river and shipped to a wholesaler, fish store then your tank. I think it's reasonable to believe the stability question is largely based in their genetics and the environment they're placed in largely dictates which way it goes.
Mostly empty bare bottom tank with little to no cover, black background and not particularly bright lights? Unstable blends in more.
Bare bottom tank with large root-like driftwood and roots from the pathos(?) and ample bright light on a light blue background. Seems like stable and using those stripes to blend with the wood and roots would hide you a lot better than being a big dark spot in an otherwise very well lit and bright tank.
That's the way I tend to look at it anyway and obviously there are other factors that could be brought up such as Sumatran IT color and stability variation, different species of datnoids and stability (IT, ST, NGT, NTT, AT), and so on though generally this conversation only covers IT which I think may leave out a lot to think about.
If anyone has any thoughts or disagrees with any of this I would really love to hear and talk about it and hear anyone out. I lost my last datnoid about a week ago and I'm sadly taking a break from my favorite fish of almost 10 years so anything to keep me in the tigerfish game while I'm temporarily away would be great!
Agreed on the pecking order and in my experience pulchers can be very aggressive.Some years ago I had a nice sized ST that was a mean old cus.It got to the point where I had to house it alone....and then there are the NGT dats that are known to be tank troublemakers.
I looked at more of this guy’s videos.. It’s so amazing how all his Datnoids are super stable.. Something must be so good with the water quality or set up
I'm guessing very carefully handpicked?The best stuff stays overseas.
