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I have two of these as some of you might remember. I haven't seen much of them until I moved them to the new combined tank. Now at least one is out in the open all the time. The thing is that they have started digging huge holes all around the tank, mostly at the edges beside the glass.

And these should be territorial against each other but now its not the case. Theres one hole where both were and there was some rubbing sides (like snakes) and the other one kept digging the hole bigger while the other one stood by.

I took a short vid of it, but then the digging started and vicibility went to zero. But I'll upload it today when I get off work so you can judge it. Could there be love in the air?

Looking forward to the video, thats for sure.

I'm glad you enjoy them more now - I have a 5th one in the q-tank, which I assume it's a male, as the face is rounder/thicker. I wonder whether the 5th will create trouble. The 4 are soft-territoreal but still hang out together occasionaly.

I enjoy them A LOT more. Colors have starting to show more than in the old tank. Think the main reason was that the light isn't that bright at the bottom as it used to.

Janne,

I'd be watching that tank very closely now if I were you. Schistura cf. balteata do dig pits prior tio spawning. Here is an old thread by chris1932 who sadly hasn't been around much lately: http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?t=7708 We were going to put together an article on this topic for LOL, but unfortunately, chris never sent all the relevant info.

Keep us posted!

Emma

Ok here's the video as promised. Emma, I'll take you're advice

(guess what tv-serie is being watched in the background? )

Aww.... it does indeed look like they are twitterpating (Bambi reference).

Definitely male and female, puffy cheeks and round abdomen. But the digging has stopped and they now hang out at different places, female at left end and male on the right end of the tank.

great video!

Very nice video, nice to watch. Did one of them change the colour at any time?

I've observed some digging too, one turned black only 2 stripes remained pink. I have pic's and a video but need to install a casio converter first (borrowed cam, the file extension is .mov?! I can't open it yet).

i had the same colours as your fish Wolfram, i think in a recent post i put a couple of pics up showing this and the female had slimmed down quite alot.

mick
i hope i've done this right.

off course you did it right, matey (had to look that one up in the dictionary ).

Thanks for the pic, Mick.

What kind is the darkened one? Striata perhaps?

I was wondering and searching for any other post that you mentioned, but did not find it, but that pic shows it very well.

The digging has started again after a months break. Maybe some results this time or maybe the tank has too many predators.