Fish Behavior--Just for Fun

[monicaswizzle]

Friends--I recently added a new fish to my tank and saw a surprising interaction. No questions here, just a fun observation. My only question is why we don't have a "fish behavior" forum. Most of our observations are strictly anecdotal and probably usually too affected by the artificial nature of our systems to add anything to marine "science", but I am sure we all see things in our tanks that are fun to talk about and some of which might actually relate to the "real world". Anyway, here is my story:

I recently added a purple tang (yellowtail) to my tank. Despite the fact that the compatibility charts predict no problems, I wanted to make sure that there were no conflicts with the existing residents. I was most interested in the tang's interaction with my coral beauty angel, since they are the two fish in my tank most similar in general body size and color. I thought there was an outside chance of some aggression since both fish can also be a little feisty. Well, imagine my surprise when my coral beauty decided that the purple tang is an appropriate mate! The angel fish has been "displaying" non-stop for two days now. The tang pretty much ignores the angel, but every few minutes the angel fish swims over and presents it's body to the tang the same way that my male cichlids do with the female cichlids in my freshwater tank. It has been quite a hoot to watch. I still have some concern that the coral beauty will get frustrated with the tang's lack of interest and get more aggressive, but so far it is a tragic but peaceful case of unrequited love.

Thanks for the listen. Let me know now if you want to sign up to adopt any tang-angel crosses that may develop in my tank!

[IanInDC]

I've seen separate species of centropyge (angels) actually pair up. My buddy Mike has a coral beauty and an Eibli pair in his 65 gal. I've never heard of inter-Family luvin' though. That's cool.

[AquaReeferMan]

Yeah the Behavior of my fish vary from time to time. As for my hippo tang I thought it would rip up a new yellow tang. Do my surprise they hung out everyday. Since then I had to remove the YT due to an infection. So I figured I would be able to add another med. sized fish with no problem. So I purchase a flame angel. As soon as I placed it into the tank my Hippo when crazy. Chased it from one end to the other. There was nothing I could do. Within 2 days the flame was dead. While it was darting away from the hippo tang, it darted into my carpet nem. As for my Saddleback clowns they didnt bother anyone for a couple of months and now they are going after my cleaner wrasse. All in all fish behavior is usually overlooked and not talked about. Some days my fish are very personal and on other days they dont want nothing to do with me. I guess somedays they are happy and some days they wanna kill everyone.