Glass surfing

[TheDudeAbides818]

My Red Dwarf Gourami and Pleco are glass surfing like crazy lately. Two angels seem to be staying together but away from the activity. Think it’s freaking them out a bit. Thoughts?

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

If the two angels are pairing up, then they will push all over fish away, as they gradually take over the tank. They're tough cichlids, and tricky to keep long term in community tanks

 

[Colin_T]

How long has the tank been set up for?
How long have you had the fish for?
Have you changed anything in the aquarium in the last few days?

Is the water quality good (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH)?

Maybe post a video showing the entire tank and the fish surfing. You can upload videos to YouTube, then copy & paste the link here.
If you use a mobile phone to film the fish, hold the phone horizontally (landscape mode) so the footage fills the entire screen and doesn't have black bars on either end.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

My Red Dwarf Gourami and Pleco are glass surfing like crazy lately. Two angels seem to be staying together but away from the activity. Think it’s freaking them out a bit. Thoughts?

Any chance you could get some video of the tank and fish? Others will be able to tell a lot from the behaviour. Video upload feature here doesn't work, but if you upload to youtube then link it here, people can see it then.

Sometimes glass surfing a bit can be normal. Like when a fish is newly introduced to a tank and not settled in yet, if the glass they're surfing is especially reflective, sometimes my cories and otos will do a little glass surfing when they're getting worked up and about to get frisky - but then it's short in duration.

If fish in a tank they're established in suddenly start glass surfing and it's unusual for them/they're not spawning, could be a problem with water parameters, so worth checking those. But especially with angels, and you say that the two angels have been pairing up recently... makes me think much more likely that they've formed a pair, and a pair of cichlids don't like others in their territory when they're wanting to breed. Have seen pics and videos of two angels calmly swimming around a tank, while every other tank mate is pressed up against the glass on one side, trying to avoid the angels, that have decided the whole tank is their territory, and they're not going to tolerate others being in there.

Will mean removing fish and changing things up, because the next step is the angels killing the other fish, if they don't get out of their territory, and the other fish cannot escape the glass box they're in, so require our intervention.

 

[TheDudeAbides818]

Ok… I’ll try to upload a You Tube video and link it here for everyone to see. But the two angels are on the smaller side and they’ve stayed together since I got them. But they’re staying low and in a corner together a lot of the time, almost as if they’re afraid to be near the other two fish that are swimming erratically. Don’t think there’s much of an issue of the angels being territorial here.

Also, the Pleco WAS pretty calm the first couple weeks (hanging on the glass or gravel or on a rock, basically not moving a whole lot) but now he’s swimming an awful lot and fast too. Very different behavior than he used to have. Water parameters are good, nothing changed in the last few days either.

Ive had the Pleco for about 2 weeks, the Gourami and 2 angels for about 3 weeks. Tank was set up back in May I believe.