Hippo playing with fire!!!!
 

Ok, well not exactly :)

My hippo keeps swiming SOOOOOOO close to my RBTA!!!! I am talking 1/2 cm or even less from the nearest tentacle!

It has gotten so bad, that I keep watching my tank just so that I know when to get up and stick my fingers inside the BTA's mouth to fish the tang out!!! I don't look at my tank any more, I only look at the tang and "wait" for him to be caught by the RBTA's tentacles!!!!!!

Anybody has this behavior in their tanks?

Do tangs know that BTA = DEATH? :)

My hippo is only 1.5" long, and I got him when he was less than 1" long, so I have a feeling that he never saw a BTA before and doesn't know that it will eat him if it catches him... any thoughts?

reply
 

I wouldn't worry too much about it. My reagal used to do the same thing with my seabae. Only, he actually did touch it from time to time. I think he though he was part clown fish.:biggrin:

BTA's aren't really "fish eaters" at the size most of us keeps them. The tang will probably feel a sting and move away, and if yours is a dumb as mine it will keep getting stung until it learns.

I agree. I have had BTAs for a long time and I've had more than one fish get a little too close...but none have ever been eaten. The only exception to this is of course if you have paid more than $100 for a fish...then expect it to be the one that gets eaten (it that whole "the more expensive the fish the greater something stupid will happen to it" rule).

No way a BTA can take down a healthy tang .. I wouldn't sweat it. BTA's are opportunistic scavengers, not predators. Carpets are the worst for taking down fish, they're just too sticky.

Of course never having seen a BTA is immaterial. Fish in nature have nobody to show them what might eat them. We are really looking at eons of instinct. There really is no such thing as learned behaviour is fish.:mrgreen:

Thanks guys...

I noticed that he is not getting too close any more, may be he got stung a time or two and now is backing off ;)

But it was definately an emotional roller-coaster for a while there (for me at least) :) lol