Interspecific interactions

[bslindgren]

This am I noticed two loaches doing the circle battle, and thought it was two zebra loaches (striata). Since I hadn't seen them doing this before I looked a bit closer, and it turned out to be one striata and one kubotai. It appeared the striata was trying to take over some favoured real estate, so the two of them were going at it for about ten minutes. I've seen them chase each other before, but never a prolonged interaction like this. Has anyone else seen this? The kub was really miffed, and chasing every other kub since he wasn't doing so well against the striata. The kub was completely greyed out, whereas the striata seemed to be fairly normal. Now it's back to normal again, and the kubs are hanging in that spot as usual (it's a piece of driftwood that has a large vertical surface). The striata seems to have gotten tired of the game. No injuries as far as I can tell.
A few moments after that stopped, a couple of male black ruby barbs were circling ech other close to the bottom. For some reason my medium clown loach took exception, and got right in there as if trying to break it up.
Never a dull moment in the loach tank!!

[soul-hugger]

Fascinating behaviour!

Although it might be informative to know why they were doing it, as long as you don't know, the mystery remains, and that is also entertaining!

Loaches are great!
soul-hugger

[plaalye]

I had pretty much the same experience. My alpha loach is a striata and occasionally one of the kubotai will get a wild hair and challenge her. So far the striata remains on top. The histrionica have outgrown her but they don't seem interested in the battle for top dog.

[random2]

I saw a similar incident with couple of my yoyos couple of months back. They were totally greyed out, but were fine and playing around the next morning.