Aggressive fat fish at dinner time

[robotuna]

Hey, All,

I have a 20 gal tank with 6 lepord danios and a bristle nose plico in
it. One of the danios is bigger and is shaped a little different than
the others. It almost looks like he has something of a gut. I call him
Fat Albert because of this.

Fat Albert has a tendancy to chase all the other fish around, but come
meal time he seems to just get mean. He never nips, but if any fish
gets by any food that he can see he chases them away. It seems like
everyone is eating enough, but Fat Albert always seems to get too much.
Is this a problem? Is there anything I can do to make sure he isn't
stressing the other fish out? Thank you for the help.

Travis

[Elaine T]

robotuna wrote:
> Hey, All,
>
> I have a 20 gal tank with 6 lepord danios and a bristle nose plico in
> it. One of the danios is bigger and is shaped a little different than
> the others. It almost looks like he has something of a gut. I call him
> Fat Albert because of this.
>
> Fat Albert has a tendancy to chase all the other fish around, but come
> meal time he seems to just get mean. He never nips, but if any fish
> gets by any food that he can see he chases them away. It seems like
> everyone is eating enough, but Fat Albert always seems to get too much.
> Is this a problem? Is there anything I can do to make sure he isn't
> stressing the other fish out? Thank you for the help.
>
> Travis
>
If everyone is eating enough it's fine. Danios are quick and hungry
danios are even quicker so I'm not surprised they're all getting their
share of food. It's good that you have 6 danios. That way Fat Albert's
aggression is spread across the other 5 and no single fish will be a target.

To be sure he isn't stressing the others, just watch them. If the rest
of the danios are active and interacting with each other, their fins are
undamaged and not clamped (held abnormally close to the body), their
color is good and not faded, and they're not getting thin or abnormally
fat, they are not stressed.

--
__ Elaine T __
><__'> http://eethomp.com/fish.html <'__><

[Jim Anderson]

In article . com>,
says...
> Hey, All,
>
> I have a 20 gal tank with 6 lepord danios and a bristle nose plico in
> it. One of the danios is bigger and is shaped a little different than
> the others. It almost looks like he has something of a gut. I call him
> Fat Albert because of this.
>
> Fat Albert has a tendancy to chase all the other fish around, but come
> meal time he seems to just get mean. He never nips, but if any fish
> gets by any food that he can see he chases them away. It seems like
> everyone is eating enough, but Fat Albert always seems to get too much.
> Is this a problem? Is there anything I can do to make sure he isn't
> stressing the other fish out? Thank you for the help.
>
> Travis
>
>

In my 55 gallon Discus community tank, I had a school of 12 Cardinal
Tetras with the alpha acting very aggressive at feeding time. If one of
the other CT's beat him to brine shrimp he'd swim above it and dive down
to ram him in the top of his head repeatedly.

I started feeding at both ends of the aquarium and most of the
aggression was releived.

--
Jim Anderson
( 8(|) To email me just pull my_finger

[Rich]

"Jim Anderson" > >> Hey, All,
>>
>> I have a 20 gal tank with 6 lepord danios and a bristle nose plico in
>> it. One of the danios is bigger and is shaped a little different than
>> the others. It almost looks like he has something of a gut. I call him
>> Fat Albert because of this.
>>
>> Fat Albert has a tendancy to chase all the other fish


Hey Jim,

From my experience with Danios, both the body shape and behaviour suggest
her name is actually Fat Alberta.

HTH

Rich

[robotuna]

Thanks for the help. How do you tell the sex of danios? Could her "gut"
be eggs? I don't plan on breeding them right now, but do I need to do
anything to help/protect her? Also, I do have one fish that has the
clamped top and bottom fins. But he has been like that since I got him.
He schools and interacts with the others, and he is really active at
dinner time, but most of the time he just chills in different areas of
the tank. Should I do anything, or is he just a depressive fish? Thanks
for the advice.

Travis

[Rich]

"robotuna" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Thanks for the help. How do you tell the sex of danios? Could her "gut"
> be eggs? I don't plan on breeding them right now, but do I need to do
> anything to help/protect her? Also, I do have one fish that has the
> clamped top and bottom fins. But he has been like that since I got him.
> He schools and interacts with the others, and he is really active at
> dinner time, but most of the time he just chills in different areas of
> the tank. Should I do anything, or is he just a depressive fish? Thanks
> for the advice.
>
> Travis


Not sure about the depressive fish. Maybe the others are long fin, and he's
a short fin variety ? But sexing Danios is fairly easy. Males are slimmer,
females have a fuller belly. Females will become "fat" as they get laden
with eggs. Males may take on a brown or gold tinge when they are ready to
breed. They are probably breeding already (Do you ever see two fish swimming
fast in very tight circles ?). Danios (and any other fish in the tank) will
eat the eggs, hence no babies.

HTH

Rich

[robotuna]

Thanks for the info. I did notice some activity like you mentioned,
with them swimming in circles. If they are mating that would be great,
since in the future I would like to try breeding them. Please take a
look at my new thread about my danio and plico possibly being sick. I
decided, since the topic was different, I should start a new thread
instead of changing this one. Thanks everyone for all the help. I'm
still learning, so every little tip helps.

Travis