Shark and Gourami

[NeveR]

Actually I've noticed it with most of my fish.

I just put in a male and female gourami and it seems as though the female is getting alot of attention from my other fish.

I don't know the sex of any of my other fish (near impossible to tell).

A couple Blue Jay Tetra's like to follow the female Gourami around wherever she goes, and the shark is absolutely head-over-heels for her.

The shark extends his dorsal fin as open as possible, along with the anal fin and ventral fins, seems like he's showing off. He chases the other fish away from her. He also seems to clean? or run his mouth along her sides, and swim around her in circles, and brush against her. I have no idea what he's doing when he runs his mouth along her sides, any ideas?

And also, are there any ideas what causes this behaviour? (particularly the shark)




Thanks in advance.

 

[phil]

Hi NeveR

My silver (Bala) sharks did something similar when I added my second shark it looks as though it`s some sort of mating ritual.

If one of your fish is female and is just coming into a breeding season it is possible that she might be releasing some hormone that the other fish can also sense.

Should`nt do them any harm though but just watch that they don`t stress her out by all the attention.

Phil

 

[andywg]

Our Bala shark used to do that with the Gouramis but I put it down to them being the only fish of comparable size to school with.

 

[Aylana]

I have heard that some fish can suck the slime coats of other fish which isn't very good for the fish being sucked on! I'm not sure if sharks have this tendency though. Hopefully someone more experienced will come along and drop in their 2p on the subject.

Aylana