Chromis Behavior

[jhutto]

Have five green chromis in my 90 gallon tank for months and months. All out swimming having a good time. This weekend I was gone and came home and all are still there but they are "cowarding" in the rocks and barely come out to eat. Before they were schooling and all very happy together. There are no aggressive fish in the tank. Only a Yellow watchman, pink spotted goby, yellow tang, flame angel and kole tank and a couple of perculas. No one seems to be bothering them. Any ideas why the change in behavior? None of them seems to be chasing the other ones. The other fish are acting perfectly normal. Water quality seems to be fine.

Joe

 

[derek_s]

Hmm, seems like only one person left that could be responsible... YOU

Have YOU been beating them? Picking on them?

 

[bobz]

It sounds like they may have paired up. I had a group of five that were great together as juveniles but as they got older they started pairing up. I would bet that atleast one of them is dominating the group and causing the rest to retreat to safety. In my case, I had to seperate them out to two smaller groups. It wasn't immediately obvious to me that is what was going on and one of the five did not make it. Keep a close eye on them and watch for signs of agression from a dominant fish.

 

[bobz]

BTW, I am going to be reintroducing the split up pairs in the new 210. I'm guessing that they will not be buddies so I may be pulling them back out some time soon! I am hoping the tank is big enough with enough space to allow for both pairs to survive together. We shall see.