James_in_MN
Aquarium Advice FINatic
I saw something quite interesting last night; part of the fun of watching interactions in an aquarium.
I had read a few people post that getting a male and female ram isn't a good idea if you aren't truly intending to breed them since they'll get aggressive with the other fish at breeding time. Due to this, I decided to get only one ram in the future, and instead bought a female betta yesterday to add to my 20g high. The fish/inverts I already had in the tank were 10 black neon tetras, 3 ottos, and around 9 ghost shrimp.
As she was exploring the tank, a sizeable number of the ghost shrimp congregated at the opposite corner of the tank, obviously distressed to see a potential predator in the tank. She eventually wandered into their corner, checking them out, possibly surveying the dinner menu (I hope not, LOL). One or two of the ghost shrimp did their random darting away, hopefully from getting bumped into and not from the betta trying to taste them, LOL.
That was when things got interesting.
One of the largest ghost shrimp hovered over the betta, pinching at her from above, and it honestly looked like it was attacking her. She finally swam away hurredly from that corner of the tank.
A bit later, she was swimming low along the gravel at a normal pace with a smaller shrimp scurrying away in front of her. She wasn't necessarily chasing it in my opinion, just swimming along minding her business. One of the largest shrimp (maybe the same one, who knows) put itself in position between the two, facing the betta. She stopped dead in her tracks, the shrimp advanced just a bit, she backed up a bit, then she swam off to another part of the tank.
Has anyone else noticed this behavior with any of their inverts?
I had read a few people post that getting a male and female ram isn't a good idea if you aren't truly intending to breed them since they'll get aggressive with the other fish at breeding time. Due to this, I decided to get only one ram in the future, and instead bought a female betta yesterday to add to my 20g high. The fish/inverts I already had in the tank were 10 black neon tetras, 3 ottos, and around 9 ghost shrimp.
As she was exploring the tank, a sizeable number of the ghost shrimp congregated at the opposite corner of the tank, obviously distressed to see a potential predator in the tank. She eventually wandered into their corner, checking them out, possibly surveying the dinner menu (I hope not, LOL). One or two of the ghost shrimp did their random darting away, hopefully from getting bumped into and not from the betta trying to taste them, LOL.
That was when things got interesting.
One of the largest ghost shrimp hovered over the betta, pinching at her from above, and it honestly looked like it was attacking her. She finally swam away hurredly from that corner of the tank.
A bit later, she was swimming low along the gravel at a normal pace with a smaller shrimp scurrying away in front of her. She wasn't necessarily chasing it in my opinion, just swimming along minding her business. One of the largest shrimp (maybe the same one, who knows) put itself in position between the two, facing the betta. She stopped dead in her tracks, the shrimp advanced just a bit, she backed up a bit, then she swam off to another part of the tank.
Has anyone else noticed this behavior with any of their inverts?
