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Do fish unlearn bad habits?


chorrylan

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hi,

I watched my new wildcaught Cyrotocara moorii male spawning with two different females this evening and was rather impressed by his prowess until I realized he was eating the eggs.

It seemed to be an intentional and well learned bad habit, not just an opportunistic or chance event: every run through the spawning site he'd race back to grab the eggs as the female followed and snaffle them all before she could turn around. The females didn't manage to grab a single egg.

Anyway... have other people seen similar behaviour? and more importantly has the fish in question ever broken the habit or are such fish a lost cause.

Such a shame too, all the females were waiting desperately for a stud to arrive.

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Maybe he was extra hungry Laurie - perhaps he needs a bit of extra food wink.gif.

I used to keep D. filamentosus & keyholes who were egg eaters.... they did this most of the time... though feeling secure (ie: choice of spawning site)... seemed to have something to do with the egg eating in their case.

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I have some moorii too. My ones aren't wildcaught but they do similar strange things too.

Once the female spat out all of her eggs onto the gravel so that she could swim up to the top of the tank to eat with all the other fish. Needless the say my calvus was waiting and the eggs weren't there when she returned. blink.gif I don't know why she didn't just swallow them. rolleyes.gif

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It was the first time I ever got to see the actual egg laying process and I was really excited. A pair of my Stuartgranti neons were spinning around doing their thing.While she was dropping eggs, to my horror he kept following her in a circle gulping down all the eggs.

This was the only time I have seen this pair spawn and that was about 12 months ago, so I am waiting for the next time to see if he will do the right thing....Hopefully.

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cry2.gifcry2.gifcry2.gifcry2.gifcry2.gifcry2.gif

I can just imagine your little nose pressed to the tank Laurie, the tears starting to form, watching you wild caught male make a pig of himself.

I sure hope once you manage to get him fattened up that he stops eating his unhatched young.

I can't believe he scoffed the lot and not one of the females got to pickup one egg.

Better luck next time mate.

Any pictures of the new boy? I hear the wild caught boys are really impressive.

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