This has always been strange to me, but there are a lot of fish(especially cichlids) that will just ignore bottom dwellers while showing aggression at anything shaped like a "normal fish".
I understand that they worry about food competition and perhaps breeding competition and fish who remind them of themselves are more likely to want the things they want. This makes sense to me.
However when I look at my catfish I know they are biggest eaters of all. They are the biggest threat to the food, do not respect territories, and will wipe out any eggs/fry that are laid yet I have seen countless times cichlids that act like the catfish do not exist. Logically you would think a cichlid would never want a catfish in their tank, yet instead they are obsessed with everything other than them.
I understand not noticing an often motionless catfish like a Raphael or pleco but an active catfish or a loach? For example the pictus catfish is constantly running around, bumping into the cichlids, charging the food sometimes shoving the cichlids out the way ect. Yet I have never seen a cichlid without eggs/fry react and my cichlids could kill most of my catfish with relative ease if they tried I would think.
As a fish keeper I enjoy that I can keep loaches,catfish, eels, bichirs, and other weird creatures in most of my tanks without much concern for their safety. I just don't really understand why.
The only exception I can think of is the Moanda Jewel Cichlids who tolerated other tank mates(when not breeding) but had an obsessive hatred for Bichirs. I wondered if them being found in the same river meant the Jewel had some understanding of what the Bichir was. But if that was the logic then central/south American cichlids would know what a catfish was and attack it I would think...
No grand meaning behind this, but this question has popped into my head for many years.
I understand that they worry about food competition and perhaps breeding competition and fish who remind them of themselves are more likely to want the things they want. This makes sense to me.
However when I look at my catfish I know they are biggest eaters of all. They are the biggest threat to the food, do not respect territories, and will wipe out any eggs/fry that are laid yet I have seen countless times cichlids that act like the catfish do not exist. Logically you would think a cichlid would never want a catfish in their tank, yet instead they are obsessed with everything other than them.
I understand not noticing an often motionless catfish like a Raphael or pleco but an active catfish or a loach? For example the pictus catfish is constantly running around, bumping into the cichlids, charging the food sometimes shoving the cichlids out the way ect. Yet I have never seen a cichlid without eggs/fry react and my cichlids could kill most of my catfish with relative ease if they tried I would think.
As a fish keeper I enjoy that I can keep loaches,catfish, eels, bichirs, and other weird creatures in most of my tanks without much concern for their safety. I just don't really understand why.
The only exception I can think of is the Moanda Jewel Cichlids who tolerated other tank mates(when not breeding) but had an obsessive hatred for Bichirs. I wondered if them being found in the same river meant the Jewel had some understanding of what the Bichir was. But if that was the logic then central/south American cichlids would know what a catfish was and attack it I would think...
No grand meaning behind this, but this question has popped into my head for many years.