Hippo playing with fire!!!!

[Bob I]

Originally Posted by fresh

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?

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.

[fresh]

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