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Pet Forum / Aquaria / Cichlids / December 2003Electric Blues lose appetite for Neon tetras
Can anyone explain this behaviour? My comunity tank has loads of guppies, half a dozen angels, three Silver Sharks, and a lot of bristlenose. It also had seven Neon Tetras who usually stayed in one particular place in the tank. I bought my g/f seven juvenile Electric Blues and dumped them in the aquarium until Christmas. After the first night, had six tetras and they had changed their location in the tank. Each night the number of Tetras was whittled down until there were two left. However, these two are still there and have survived for a week. I don't seem to be losing guppies either, but this is difficult to verify. Why are the Electric blues leaving the remaining Tetras alone? Jim > Can anyone explain this behaviour? > [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > > Jim Perhaps they need another flavour?? Try cardinal's.. j/k... Tim... > Can anyone explain this behaviour? > [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > > Jim oh they will get around to them in good time . Rick > Can anyone explain this behaviour? > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > Jim Very interesting. I had a similar experience. I put 10 serpae tetras in my South American cichlid tank, guessing that my fish would leave them alone. Unfortunately, some fish (either my Geophagus surinamensis or my Satanoperca) was preying on them. Every few days their number would dwindle by one. Eventually, there was only one left. But that one serpae has now survived in that tank for six months! I think it has something to do with schooling behavior. My current guess is that schooling fish become much more cautious once a school no longer exists and/or predator fish are less likely to go after them once there is no school. Meph P.S.: I assume you know that the water requirements of electric blues and neon tetras could not be more different. > Can anyone explain this behaviour? > [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > > Jim As the surviving prey become more adept at alluding the predators, the benefit/effort ratio becomes smaller (basically they are becoming too much effort to catch for the value of the meal). Sometimes the prey does slip up, and gets to close to the predator's lunging range, so it's over. Often the prey grows large enough to discourage the predator (ie: the one feeder the Oscar never ate). Eventually the predators may forget the meal potential and become complacent about the 'hunt'. As your Electrics will vastly outgrow the adult size of a Neon, I don't think size will save those little guys. Your Electrics might be distracted by the need to hold the pecking order in place, and are currently satisfied with the amount of food they get from you. It might last, it might not. Drop something like a Nimbochromis livingstoni in there. These guys are highly food motivated (like the African version of an Oscar in this regard). I don't think they could ever forget about food ;~) NetMax >> Can anyone explain this behaviour? >> [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > they are becoming too much effort to catch for the value of the > meal). Hello net max, You make some interesting points, as always. By the way, I asked a couple of biology professors about this behavior and neither one could really come up with a definitive answer. I think you may be onto something, but I am skeptical that it is the complete explanation. First, with regard to fish such as neon tetras and serpae tetras (the latter were the fish in my example), I am skeptical that they really become "more adept" at eluding predators -- I think they are just too stupid. Instead, they are pretty much always relying upon a hardwired instinctual toolkit when evading predators. Moreover, if it were just a matter of them becoming more adept, why would the predation slow down only when the school ceased to exist? I.e., why would not the serpae tetras have become able to evade the predators in my tank after seven had been dispatched? One would think they would have gotten sufficient practice by that point. But I think your reference to the benefit/effort ratio has some merit. I think when a predator sees several fish, he thinks his chances of catching one are greater than when he sees just one or two. All this is just speculation of course, but fun to think about. Meph Sometimes the prey does slip up, and gets to close to > the predator's lunging range, so it's over. Often the prey grows > large enough to discourage the predator (ie: the one feeder the [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > NetMax > >> Can anyone explain this behaviour? > >> [quoted text clipped - 70 lines] > > > > NetMax It is interesting to speculate on. A similar behaviour can be seen when fry mbuna start coming out of their rock hiding places. You wonder how they can keep from being eaten. In reality, most were eaten, but the survivors become very adept at staying out of range of the adults. It seems like they develop a no-swim zone which occupies a spherical area around every adult fish's mouth, facing forwards. They will wander around the tank warily, and when an adult turns (so the fry enters that zone), the fry will quickly jump away. Sometimes these little jumps take place without the adult even showing awareness that the fry was close by. There might be some parallels, but to compare mbuna fry to an adult Serpae or Neon might not be fair. Mbuna fry (especially the Melanochromis sp. IMO) are far more aware of their surroundings, and are much more aggressive in their survival tactics, pushing their safety envelope. Neons would have more of the survival instincts of a rabbit being hunted by foxes, hide & wait, until they wonder why they were hiding in the first place, and wander back out ;~). NetMax |
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