Hello everyone,
About 6 months ago I bought a shoal of 12 of what were labelled as Boraras brigittae from Kesgrave. Inevitably, what I received was a good mix of several species, which after many days and nights of gazing blankly between my aquarium and photos of different Boraras species and scratching my head I decided included B. naevus, uropthalmoides and merah. Shrugging this off I concluded that they should be able to get along just fine and the tank will simply have more individual characters to enjoy. However, coming forward to today, it has become obvious that there is a bit of a divide, with the brigittae (and 1 uropthalmoides tagging along) shoaling often in a group of around 8 or 9 towards the front of the tank or individually exploring and hunting and the 3 naevus and merah skulking alone in the back behind some heavy vegetation at the bottom or at the top behind the spraybar, hardly ever coming out or mixing with the brigittae at all.
The question is, should I be worried about my poor naevus and merah being nobby no mates? I understand that males of the genus are generally territorial (not like I know how to sex them with any certainty anyway), however I feel as though they've completely rejected the social group as they simply refuse to leave their lairs. No attempts to woo the others have been observed and they don't even like moving far for food. Instead preferring to wait for microworms to gently swirl in the current towards their little faces!
Would it be advisable for me to try to re-home them where they'll have some friends of their own species?
If anyone else has experienced this divide with Boraras species, have you noticed whether it's a gender behavior or down to species or shyness?
As for potential environmental stresses I've tried to keep the tank (60x30x36 cm) as Boraras friendly as possible with low light (1 TMC Grobeam at about 10% for 7 hours), low flow, soft water (not difficult to do in Liverpool mind), lots of plants and leaf litter, feeding mainly live food with their only tankmates being shrimp and snails so I have no idea what else it could be.
I could of course be worrying about nothing, but I'd really appreciate hearing others experiences with these little rascals. I don't want to be unwittingly stressing them out by keeping them alone.
Thanks a lot,
Finn.
About 6 months ago I bought a shoal of 12 of what were labelled as Boraras brigittae from Kesgrave. Inevitably, what I received was a good mix of several species, which after many days and nights of gazing blankly between my aquarium and photos of different Boraras species and scratching my head I decided included B. naevus, uropthalmoides and merah. Shrugging this off I concluded that they should be able to get along just fine and the tank will simply have more individual characters to enjoy. However, coming forward to today, it has become obvious that there is a bit of a divide, with the brigittae (and 1 uropthalmoides tagging along) shoaling often in a group of around 8 or 9 towards the front of the tank or individually exploring and hunting and the 3 naevus and merah skulking alone in the back behind some heavy vegetation at the bottom or at the top behind the spraybar, hardly ever coming out or mixing with the brigittae at all.
The question is, should I be worried about my poor naevus and merah being nobby no mates? I understand that males of the genus are generally territorial (not like I know how to sex them with any certainty anyway), however I feel as though they've completely rejected the social group as they simply refuse to leave their lairs. No attempts to woo the others have been observed and they don't even like moving far for food. Instead preferring to wait for microworms to gently swirl in the current towards their little faces!
Would it be advisable for me to try to re-home them where they'll have some friends of their own species?
If anyone else has experienced this divide with Boraras species, have you noticed whether it's a gender behavior or down to species or shyness?
As for potential environmental stresses I've tried to keep the tank (60x30x36 cm) as Boraras friendly as possible with low light (1 TMC Grobeam at about 10% for 7 hours), low flow, soft water (not difficult to do in Liverpool mind), lots of plants and leaf litter, feeding mainly live food with their only tankmates being shrimp and snails so I have no idea what else it could be.
I could of course be worrying about nothing, but I'd really appreciate hearing others experiences with these little rascals. I don't want to be unwittingly stressing them out by keeping them alone.
Thanks a lot,
Finn.