Loaches fighting video...

ok, I've finally re-linked to the streaming video. Sorry the video is so crappy but hopefully someone will let me know if they have seen their loaches doing this??
:huh:
 
Due to a problem on my end, I cannot load the video. But since you have a clown loach as your avatar, then I would assume that you are talking about clown loaches. Yes they do fight from time to time, probably to establish hierarchy. They will bump each other, side to side, head on, do some mouth to mouth tug of war, you name it. In my experience, no serious damage other than probably stress are attained. Some skirmishes might last up to an hour but after wards they will swim and get along together as if nothing happened. I noticed that they tend to do this more often if they are in smaller groups. Clown Loaches are schooling fish I think, and most of this fighting behavior are often in groups of less than six. How are they now? :)
 
You are exactly right. They have only behaved liked this once. They played tug-of-war with their mouths and rubbed up against each other and bumped, etc. This went on for about an hour, they were exhausted but no damaged seemed to be done. I have 4 loaches in total...2 bigger ones (3-4in.) and 2 smaller ones (2in.). THe smaller ones get along ok, a little skirmish here and there. The smaller ones stick together and the bigger ones stay together, they haven't "bonded" yet.
 
i have 10 and they sometimes go at it as well, its usually after they eat though.

i have two that are about 6" and the others are 2-3", when they start swimming together they all eventually find each other and "school". the ones that are fighting is usually the smaller ones.
 
This is the first time I kept loaches of any kind. They are soooo interesting! :dive2:
 
My clown loaches do some crazy things too. When one is foraging for food or digging the gravel, another one will bump it out of place and "steal" the exact spot the other was digging at. Then the bumped one will do the exact same thing trying to steal his spot back. After about half an hour, they are on tug of war already. :duh:
 
it must be a shortage of food, fighting for a mate or a mating ritual. i have never seen this behavior in loaches before.
 
As I've read it, a lot of that fighting is for dominance. The largest loach tends to stay the largest loach, and so on down. Loach scuffles sometimes end in the occasional nipped or torn fin, but it's rare for even that much damage to occur. Check your loachs over after a battle for little greyish scuff marks. That's usually about as rough as it gets, and they heal up quite nicely. All part of the rough and tumble life of the loach. I've got two that do it about once a week, and it usually ends with one flicking the mouth hooks out and running away. Seems to say "ok, I'm really upset, if we keep this up, I'm gonna cut you!" and the other large loach seems to accept this as a win.


As for festive loach behavour.. I saw a fat clown loach snatch a freeze dried shrimp right out of the mouth of a 22 inch common pleco yesterday.
 
Malefic23 said:
As I've read it, a lot of that fighting is for dominance. The largest loach tends to stay the largest loach, and so on down. Loach scuffles sometimes end in the occasional nipped or torn fin, but it's rare for even that much damage to occur. Check your loachs over after a battle for little greyish scuff marks. That's usually about as rough as it gets, and they heal up quite nicely. All part of the rough and tumble life of the loach. I've got two that do it about once a week, and it usually ends with one flicking the mouth hooks out and running away. Seems to say "ok, I'm really upset, if we keep this up, I'm gonna cut you!" and the other large loach seems to accept this as a win.
Click to expand...
As Malefic23 said they are establishing dominance. They can do quite a bit of damage to each other. Check out Bob's pictures to see what their battle scars can look like: http://www.bobd.lunarpages.com/loaches/cind04.html
 
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