when good fish act bad...

[Magnum Man]

so I've seen this before in my long time in the hobby... admittedly usually with cichlids, and in those cases, most often the fish is just grumpy all the time, but I just watched the biggest silver dollar in my group go psychotic... a typically peaceful female, that normally is content to hover above a large piece of driftwood center tank... the group right now consists of 2 common, and 3 tigers, with one male, 2 adult females, and 2 unsexed, that are about half grown, she was totally not tolerant of any fish in her line of sight... the male was like "I'm outa here" and took position in the tank as far away from her as possible... the other adult female and the juvinals, were flying all over the tank... it lasted about 10 minutes, and things started settling down... the male ( also a common ), and that big female usually hang together... he's not tight against the glass, right now, but watching her, like he's trying to assess her mood...

this made me think about ptsd... this fish has not had an easy life, previously being in with the bichir, and getting transferred in, with the dominant yellow acara... normally a peaceful schooling fish, until she exploded... now 10 minutes after she appears normal... the other adult female hanging pretty close to her, the others still giving her more space...

the littlest fish in the group just swam over, with no violent outburst, so things must be getting back to normal...

fish ptsd??? anyone witness anything similar??? maybe a start to symptoms like from a brain bacteria or parasite???

 

[Magnum Man]

almost back to normal, except the male is still on the far left side of the tank, maybe the outburst started as a spat between the male and the female???

 

[Magnum Man]

one of the little tigers feeding now, looking for a freshly exposed root to munch on, after the outburst

 

[Magnum Man]

at this point, maybe 20 minutes after her outburst, the male swam over to her spot, he may have even touched her, ( that close ) without any issues, then swam back to where he was on the left side of the tank... maybe she did't throw a frying pan at him, but still giving him the cold shoulder???

 

[GaryE]

I've seen non-Cichid fish get really owly like that before. Invariably, it has been a shoaling fish not kept in a shoal. I even had a zebra danio decide it was going to kill everything. I was a kid at the time, and my aquarium mentor told me to get more of them. I had 2 from that species. Since way back them they cost 11 cents each, so I got a bunch and voila, peace in the valley.

You have tigers and commons - different species, not different varieties. Maybe it doesn't allow more social expression, and things get a little twisted sometimes.

 

[Back in the fold]

It sounds like what house cats do occasionally . They just get a wild hair up their butt and start tearing around like crazy . Maybe they’re relieving some pent up frustrations or boredom .

 

[Magnum Man]

the hatchet fish get the "zoomies", and the silver dollars will freak out if I'm too in their face, doing tank maintenance... but this occasion was directed at tank mates, not the big ugly guy outside the box...

 

[GaryE]

One of last year's whitetail deer fawns has grown into a curious young creature. He'll walk right up to Mabel the dog and I. I don't feed him, but someone else may. But there is real curiosity in how he watches us. I've come to quite like this animal.
Our yard is well over an acre, and a deer herd wanders it. This guy is distinct. When Mabel is in the fenced part off leash, he'll approach and they'll both get the zoomies, running along the chain link fence. Then I go into the garage beside all this, do a water change and watch fish get the zoomies. I put the right music on, and I get a form of the zoomies. It's out there!

It turns to aggression (not when I get the zoomies) when there's no one to play with. Mabel runs with dogs, and sometimes the entire deer herd catches the zoomies from each other. Shoals of fish will race all over the tank. My young cories look like they're spawning sometimes, but they're just going nuts.

I've had lone fish crash into tankmates, clearly aiming. It's taken for granted a lone tiger barbs is going to create mayhem. Add a bunch of new tiger barbs to the tank and they bash each other, not their companions (if you've chosen well).

Sometimes it's like you've put a hockey player, all geared up to hit as part of the game onto an Olympic synchro figure skating rink. Put 11 more players on the ice and he'll play by the rules, but alone with figure skaters, it'll get ugly.