Chromis kissing?
 

I couldn't get a good picture yet but two of my chromis look like they are kissing constantly. They face each other and then, well, it looks like they kiss :mrgreen: It also kind of looks like they are nipping each other mouth to mouth but not in aggression. Or kind of like they are cleaning each others mouths?

Has anyone seen anything like this?

I will try to get a picture.

I used to have cichlids and know they show their aggression and fight by mouth locking but I have never seen or heard about this in the salty world.

It's how chromis fight, in my tank the loser would end up pouting in the corner till it died :sad:

Yeah they didn't seem to be fighting though. If they were, it was the most passive chromis fight I have ever seen! It was very gentle touching and nipping at the mouth.

Oh ok, never seen them fight like that before. None are pouting in a corner either. They do it for a moment and then swim side by side. I am actually amazed that none have killed each other. This is the first time I have been able to keep them in a group without a bunch of aggression. They are with a school of 7 Scissor Gobies. The 9 chromis and 7 scissor gobies all seem to mix nicely together.

It usually took a few weeks for a loser to be decided

Interesting. They seem to be quite hit or miss. I know people keep them in schools with no problems for years and others seem to keep them in a school and they kill each other off within months. I wonder if feeding has anything to do with it? I feed the tank 3-6 times a day now but when I tried them once before, only 4 lived more than a year but I also fed only once a day. Of the four they then bullied one of them to death and the last three were fine together for another year. I have not tried a bigger group again though until now.

I'm down to 3.
2 appear to have paired off and the 3rd is a tiny little runt that never grew and has never been picked on...I think there's a lesson in there somewhere :razz:

:lol:

How many did you start with and how long? And you feed your tank a lot right? I seem to remember you maybe saying that before...could be wrong though.

This is the last shot at trying a school for me. I am very happy with my scissor tail gobies though! They get along amazingly (not known to fight) and actually stay in a school. They are all about 3" too, so decent sized. If one darts under the rocks, they all do. Its like follow the leader with them.

+1 on kissing. Still have pair, they were doing in it for a while. Havent seen them doing lately but sure was amazing to see. Didn't read about behaviour of chromies, they were more bought to fill midwater column(cheap). Nowdays one is hiding constantly while other is out. Maybe just a short affair?

^^^ same reason I got mine. Although I had hoped my gobies would stay in the lower half of the tank and the chromis up closer to the middle/top. Thought it would fill the tank nice and even...of course my fish don't behave and ALL congregate in the middle/center of my tank ;)

So there is a huge school of 17 fish that crowd one area of the tank!

damselfish aka chomis are the direct relatives to cichlids and it is how both cichilds and chromis fight. doesnt mean one is going to die for certain but it is a fight for the pecking order none the less.

Good to know.

Well mine certainly are not going to be able to kill each other the way they were kissing earlier :D

I want them to do it again for a picture but they won't do it for the camera!

mine have done the same thing but they dont kill each other its like deers or rams bumping heads to see who is stongest. in some cases it may lead to outcasting but not always.

yeah I have heard of clowns doing the same and they can screw up each others jaws like that, leading to dislocated or locked jaws... or just a fish being generally beat to death or submission. Hopefully just submission, but personally, I hear of more death than I do success with chromis groups of any size greater than one.

There was a thread on RC about chromis groups and it was maybe about 60-40 but certainly more death. Seems once down around 3 it works ok. We'll see. So far so good. Just the one incident of jaw fighting so far. I expect more eventually though.

I love chromis, great cheap little fish. I have found that 3 at the same time really is that magic number. I've tried 6, 12 and 15 at different times but the final number after a month or so always goes back down to three.