confusion
Fishaholic
So, I have a 30G cube tank in my office with mollies, swordtails, otos and a dwarf gourami. He;s established himself as the king of the tank.
So, a friend of mine has a tank that probably has a bad mix of fish, but they had a silver lyre tail molly that was picking on their dwarf gourami to the point that they thought it was life threatening. So, they put the molly in a .25G bowl and kept him there for 2 weeks or so until I saw her there. I offered to take her, since she would soon die and they accepted. I took her home and acclimated her pretty well, since she had been in such bad conditions. When I released her, she started after my dwarf gourami. But, my dwarf is king of the tank. The mollies aggression was met with the gourami repeatedly ramming into her and chasing her about, until she hid. For a day or two after, the gourami would apparently intentionally swim into the path of the molly and make her move and yield to him. Now, the leave each other alone completely, though the molly does stay out of the gourami's way.
I started watching my tank more closely and noticed that just about all the fish yield to the gourami. He only has to raise his feelers in the direction of a fish to get them to politely move out of his way.
I decided to add some angels to the tank. I thought that might be interesting, since the angels are known to be a little more aggressive. After releasing them, he chased each one in turn, bumping into it's back side, not doing any damage that I can see. He just appears to inform each new fish of their place in the heirachy of the tank.
Also, I have a small female dwarf gourami. The forementioned molly started trying to pick on her, and the male dwarf showed that his reign also includes keeping the whole tank peaceful, not just for himself. The male gourami appears to be looking for aggression anywhere in the tank and immediately swims to the middle of it and "spanks" the aggressor.
Is that normal behavior?
So, a friend of mine has a tank that probably has a bad mix of fish, but they had a silver lyre tail molly that was picking on their dwarf gourami to the point that they thought it was life threatening. So, they put the molly in a .25G bowl and kept him there for 2 weeks or so until I saw her there. I offered to take her, since she would soon die and they accepted. I took her home and acclimated her pretty well, since she had been in such bad conditions. When I released her, she started after my dwarf gourami. But, my dwarf is king of the tank. The mollies aggression was met with the gourami repeatedly ramming into her and chasing her about, until she hid. For a day or two after, the gourami would apparently intentionally swim into the path of the molly and make her move and yield to him. Now, the leave each other alone completely, though the molly does stay out of the gourami's way.
I started watching my tank more closely and noticed that just about all the fish yield to the gourami. He only has to raise his feelers in the direction of a fish to get them to politely move out of his way.
I decided to add some angels to the tank. I thought that might be interesting, since the angels are known to be a little more aggressive. After releasing them, he chased each one in turn, bumping into it's back side, not doing any damage that I can see. He just appears to inform each new fish of their place in the heirachy of the tank.
Also, I have a small female dwarf gourami. The forementioned molly started trying to pick on her, and the male dwarf showed that his reign also includes keeping the whole tank peaceful, not just for himself. The male gourami appears to be looking for aggression anywhere in the tank and immediately swims to the middle of it and "spanks" the aggressor.
Is that normal behavior?
I've seen simialr things with gouramies but I don't think I've ever seen one actively breaking up fights unless he feels they are likely to cause a change in hierarchy (eg: if a lower ranking male picks a fight, the dominant one will come and break it up by chasing him away as if he's trying to prevent that other male from feeling like he might be able to take on the dominant fish). As for the molly clashing with the gourami - that happens all the time and I realy can't understand why. Mollies and gouramies just don't like each other it seems 
