Capitalist Fish?

[eldaldo]

Well, I posted a while back about how many fish to put in what I thought was ten gallon but turns out to be a fifteen gallon tank. I tested it and it is all cycled so I went ahead and got some more fish. I got two bronze cories ( I will be getting a third maybe), and three black skirt tetras. making a total of five black skirt tetras (10in.) and two bronze cories (4in.).

So, heres the interesting part. One of the two black skirt tetras I origionally had is eating all the food! It is becoming so fat as well, like an obese American fish! I think it's kinda funny, but I'm wondering what is going on? Is this fish the dominant male? or female? Or is it just a greedy capitalist pig? I don't know.

Anyone else ever see this?

 

[Boids-n-more]

LOL i know what you mean , i have a red jewl cichlid thats a huge pig and will try to eat so much of the food that he has had it hanging out of his mouth while the other chichlids started eating it out of his mouth. What i do now instead of putting the food in one area i spread it out over the tank so all fish can get some , He can only hog up one area lol.

 

[pica_nuttalli]

Well, I posted a while back about how many fish to put in what I thought was ten gallon but turns out to be a fifteen gallon tank. I tested it and it is all cycled so I went ahead and got some more fish. I got two bronze cories ( I will be getting a third maybe), and three black skirt tetras. making a total of five black skirt tetras (10in.) and two bronze cories (4in.).

So, heres the interesting part. One of the two black skirt tetras I origionally had is eating all the food! It is becoming so fat as well, like an obese American fish! I think it's kinda funny, but I'm wondering what is going on? Is this fish the dominant male? or female? Or is it just a greedy capitalist pig? I don't know.

Anyone else ever see this?

hey now! some of us American capitalists are nice and svelte!

depending on how you've defined "fat", it is entirely possible that it is just female. in each of my schools of larger tetras, the "boss hog" of the group was decidedly female. female tetras generally have deeper bodies than males and (in my opinion) reach an adult size faster. well-fed female tetras also tend to thicken up pretty substantially as a part of entering breeding condition. this often gives them a "fat" appearance. not that you can expect babies anytime soon! a gravid female tetra mostly just indicates a well cared-for adult fish.

since the leader of a school is generally the biggest and baddest of them all, your capitalist fish could just be the only adult female in a large group of males.

--EDIT--
one thing you can try doing is swapping from a flake to a pellet food. that way you can more easily judge just how much each fish is eating. since an appropriately sized pellet is also bite-sized, using them helps prevent the boss fish from literally stealing food out of the other's mouths.