There was another time with my nanolutea when I had girardinus and limia in their tank, I never really turned the light off on that tank, so the one time I tried to, all the girardinus started freaking out, one died of what I can only assume was shock, so I turned the light back on. When my female found the dead girardinus a few minutes later, she just stared at it for a bit, looked at me, then back at the girardinus, went and got the male, they both stared at it for a few more minutes, then the male picked it up, put it on the other side of the tank, and put a leaf on top of it. I have a picture of the female staring at it, but I didn't want to spook them with the phone and make them stop whatever they were doing by recording. That's probably the craziest thing I've seen my fish do, was pretty funny to watch.
The male nanolutea also seems to keep a "lawn". Their tank was the only one I did any fancy scaping to in terms of making little hills in the sand to add depth or whatever, and it stayed like that for awhile. Most cichlids you would expect to ruin this by making their own hills or pits, digging down to the glass, etc. And most other pairs I have do. My male nanolutea on the other hand, just made it all completely flat. One day I noticed him pushing sand around. I figured he was getting ready for a spawn. He did not end up spawning, and after a few weeks all the sand in the tank was flat. There was one time I needed to clear something out of the tank and messed up the sand a bit. When I was finished, and everything calmed down, he got back to fixing the little impurity his "lawn".
You see a lot more behaviors when you give them a natural setup and just stare at them for awhile. The nanolutea tank is next to my bed, so I see them doing things a lot. I've heard that you'll never see natural behaviors when you're in front of the tank since they'll know you're there and associate you with food or whatever, but when you're as relatively hands off and inconsistent as I am, they seem to learn to not rely on me and go about their normal grazing and terraforming behaviors, even when I'm in front of the tank. Either that or just feeding them in the morning so the rest of they day they're not begging for food.
The male nanolutea also seems to keep a "lawn". Their tank was the only one I did any fancy scaping to in terms of making little hills in the sand to add depth or whatever, and it stayed like that for awhile. Most cichlids you would expect to ruin this by making their own hills or pits, digging down to the glass, etc. And most other pairs I have do. My male nanolutea on the other hand, just made it all completely flat. One day I noticed him pushing sand around. I figured he was getting ready for a spawn. He did not end up spawning, and after a few weeks all the sand in the tank was flat. There was one time I needed to clear something out of the tank and messed up the sand a bit. When I was finished, and everything calmed down, he got back to fixing the little impurity his "lawn".
You see a lot more behaviors when you give them a natural setup and just stare at them for awhile. The nanolutea tank is next to my bed, so I see them doing things a lot. I've heard that you'll never see natural behaviors when you're in front of the tank since they'll know you're there and associate you with food or whatever, but when you're as relatively hands off and inconsistent as I am, they seem to learn to not rely on me and go about their normal grazing and terraforming behaviors, even when I'm in front of the tank. Either that or just feeding them in the morning so the rest of they day they're not begging for food.