Courting belly dance or submissive behavior?

[Claude-Michel Prevost]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqzTU2ocII4&feature=context&...

All 3 related clips are here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/oshogoun/videos

Back to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqzTU2ocII4&feature=context&...

The male with the red spot on the nose is in the tube on the left. 

He's been chasing both females around for the last 2 days.

He's particularly stubborn with that one female - I assume it's a female, I did check for 2 spots on the lower belly, chasing her around, biting her belly and sides, but there is no blood and she doesn't run to the empty tube on the right.

Here she is, standing up while he watches. Then he will bug her again.

Courting belly dance? Submissiveness? 

There is no blood or overt violence.

And, he has not redone any nest since his transfer from the other aquarium, where he was really hot for another female - which I still have not been able to capture since she's so gifted at escaping my nest.

Questions for the group:

Seen that before?
It is safe?
Is it expected?
Should I replace him with another male?
Should I get him his favorite female?
Should I replace the present females?
Should I leave them together? 

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Claude-Michel

[Dave & Yvonne Story]

I don't have an answer. I did enjoy the videos. I am looking forward to the replies.

I have 3 males and 4 females in a 50 gal aquarium. the dominant male did his nest building and keeps all out of his area. the 2nd male stayed at the other end with the others. this was for 3 days. now the 2nd male cleared a nest for himself under the group.. . this is an afternoon and evening activity.. I am tempted to take the dominant male out of the tank, he his too aggressive about his nest giving the others.. Love watching

only a small part of the tank..  

[Sheri Schmeckpeper]

That's submission; kind of like a dog rolling on its back. Ours don't do that often, but it does happen when they feel heavily oppressed. Ours will usually stand on their heads when they go vertical.

Tilapia don't have a gentle society, by any means. Once they reach maturity there is always a dominate fish who badgers the others regularly, except during feeding. Size has a lot to do with dominance, if not everything.

We have Nile, so we can tell what's going on from color as well as behavior. When ready to breed, they turn white. The subordinate fish turn dark and try to hide; usually at the top of the water. Right now we have three white (one male and two females) and three very dark ones bunched up in a wad.The white females have nest areas that they are defending, and the male is hanging out with one of the females. All three keep whacking the others to make sure they stay in a dark wad. This can go on for days before they finally breed.

[Sheri Schmeckpeper]

Nice picture, Dave! You can see the male's breeding colors very distinctly.

[Claude-Michel Prevost]

March 22 2012 Update:

Thanks for the feedback, people. And sorry for the delay.

I did move James, the male, back in the coop.

For a day or 2 he was sullen, then went back to being a male, building nest, fighting other males, and chasing females.

Red Queen was left alone in the hatchery.

Then within a week I lost 48 of the fish, in 3 separate incidents, within a single week.

I still can''t explain, since food, temperature, water, water cleanup, aquarium cleanup schedule, everything was the same.

I lost James and all the ones from the 1st generation, already 5 months old.

I have 20, 25 left, mostly runts from the 4 months old, not sexed yet, but looking healthy.

I will keep you posted as I/they recover.

Thanks again for your input.

Cheers

CM

[Dave & Yvonne Story]

Thank you for sharing. Sad to hear you experience a problem that you cannot identify. Since I started to setup my colony, I have lost 4 fish. I attribute it to an over agressive male and not enough fish to pick-on. Things seem to have stabelized in that tank. I further guess that the male was getting overly agressive to fertilize eggs.. then all of a sudden, I moved him out, but he could not controll his reproduction urges.

I have a much calmer male as the dominant in my colony.
 
Claude-Michel Prevost said:

March 22 2012 Update:

Thanks for the feedback, people. And sorry for the delay.

I did move James, the male, back in the coop.

For a day or 2 he was sullen, then went back to being a male, building nest, fighting other males, and chasing females.

Red Queen was left alone in the hatchery.

Then within a week I lost 48 of the fish, in 3 separate incidents, within a single week.

I still can''t explain, since food, temperature, water, water cleanup, aquarium cleanup schedule, everything was the same.

I lost James and all the ones from the 1st generation, already 5 months old.

I have 20, 25 left, mostly runts from the 4 months old, not sexed yet, but looking healthy.

I will keep you posted as I/they recover.

Thanks again for your input.

Cheers

CM

[Sheri Schmeckpeper]

Oh, my goodness, Claude, I'm so sorry! Did you test the water for the usual--ammonia, nitrites, nitrates & PH? 

[Claude-Michel Prevost]

I did have an ammonia spike in one aquarium, but since I lost fish from 2 different batches and 2 different aquariums in 3 different occasions in the same week, when I had changed up to 80% of the water for each aquarium every other day, I don't know anymore.

So I lost all my 5 month olds, the biggest and fattest, Reds and Niles including the male and female breeders, in less than 1 day.

 I also lost most of my junior ones, the 4 months old, mostly Niles, over 2 days.

I will remember this March full moon.

I had about 30 4months old left, which are now in Chuckleberry Community's barrelponics sytem:\

http://chuckleberrycommunity.blogspot.ca

I kept a Nile Male and a Red female left.

I put them together after noticing them courting.

I missed the part of them fertilizing the eggs.

For 3 days the male constantly kept chasing the female away.

I thought they were still courting.

Boy was he agressive.

I didn't understand he was chasing her away.

Then I read somewhere that you can cut the top lip of the male, like a harelip, so his biting is less brutal on the female.

Now the female jumped out. Litterally banged the aquarium lid open.

I separated them. The female is now resting but not eating, which to me means she's still pregnant.

The male is by himself, still very colorful, and waiting for another female.

I will keep you posted.

Thanks again for your feedback.

I still use the usual Hagen tests for nitrates and ph. Do you have anything a little bit more sophisticated?

Cheers,|
CM 

Sheri Schmeckpeper said:

That's submission; kind of like a dog rolling on its back. Ours don't do that often, but it does happen when they feel heavily oppressed. Ours will usually stand on their heads when they go vertical.

Tilapia don't have a gentle society, by any means. Once they reach maturity there is always a dominate fish who badgers the others regularly, except during feeding. Size has a lot to do with dominance, if not everything.

We have Nile, so we can tell what's going on from color as well as behavior. When ready to breed, they turn white. The subordinate fish turn dark and try to hide; usually at the top of the water. Right now we have three white (one male and two females) and three very dark ones bunched up in a wad.The white females have nest areas that they are defending, and the male is hanging out with one of the females. All three keep whacking the others to make sure they stay in a dark wad. This can go on for days before they finally breed.

[Sheri Schmeckpeper]

That's a huge loss, Claude-Michel!  I, and many others, use the API test kit to test for PH, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates.

Can you see if the female has eggs in her mouth?  If she has eggs she won't eat and holds her mouth funny. She moves her mouth to swirl the eggs and give them fresh water.

Our male is very demanding. He expects his girls to perform on his schedule, and if they have eggs, he can get testy and impatient, alternating between chasing, dancing, and attacking. We always pull him out once she has eggs.

[Claude-Michel Prevost]

Sheri,

I will  check the female tomorrow when I return home.

I'm at Chuckleberry Community now, where the barrelponic system was installed a month ago and the fish moved in last week Thursday.

For the last week they didn't eat much.

The water was constantly recycled from the fish's barrel to the top reservoir to the grow beds with sprouts in them and back to the fish barrel, so we didn;'t think there was even enough ammonia or nitrates or nitrites in the system

There were air stones in the grow beds and the fish barrels.

There were heaters in the top reservoir and the fish barrels, at 76* for the first 2 days then bumped up at 80,. 81 for the last 3 days.

Most of them about 12 -  died today.

5 more died this evening as I was removing them from the barrel.

They would not gasp for air.

They rolled on their side or on their back.

6 are left, including the oldest one, the red female breeder who survived from the first batch. 

We moved them to another bucket with an airstone and placed the bucket in the heated fish barrel for the night.

Since I'm having problems uploading the pics in this email, here his the link to the flickr.com pics.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/claude-michel/with/7047207321/

Please take a look at the pics.

What am I dealing with?

Thanks,

CM
 

Sheri Schmeckpeper said:

That's a huge loss, Claude-Michel!  I, and many others, use the API test kit to test for PH, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates.

Can you see if the female has eggs in her mouth?  If she has eggs she won't eat and holds her mouth funny. She moves her mouth to swirl the eggs and give them fresh water.

Our male is very demanding. He expects his girls to perform on his schedule, and if they have eggs, he can get testy and impatient, alternating between chasing, dancing, and attacking. We always pull him out once she has eggs.

[Sheri Schmeckpeper]

Claude-Michel,

There doesn't appear to be anything out of the ordinary in the pictures. Did you ever test for ammonia and nitrites?  Even with circulation and plants won't stop ammonia and nitrite buildup. The system has to be properly cycled to get the bacteria in place.

The fact that they started dying in one system and continued dying in another is more indicative of disease, though. I can't tell anything from the pictures, though. You'd be able to tell by behavior--clasping fins, slow movement, scratching, etc. Also, they might have pink gills, spots, sores, or other marks. Did you notice anything like that? 

Are the last ones still alive?

[Sheri Schmeckpeper]

Another thing that can kill in mass would be chemicals. Spraying for insects nearby, using containers that were previously used for chemicals, or adding things to the system that might not be good for the fish.  Any of these can introduce deadly chemicals.

[Claude-Michel Prevost]

Guess what?

The heater.

The heater melted the plastic at the bottom of the barrel.

I found a line of crude stuff on 1 heater that was touching the barrel, and I could not scratch it out!!

That's how I lost the ones at Chuckleberry over 1 week.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/claude-michel/sets/72157629076495226/

Does not explain the other losses, though. But that one, I now understand.

Cheers,

CM