Do all fish of a species act the same

So many fish.... so many theories.....

IMHO.... there are no "hard and fast" rules concerning aquarium keeping.....What works for me, may not work for everybody.....

For instance..... (I know this is a controversial example to use, but it is my true experience).... I have yet to find an aggressive Betta if placed in a community tank (if there are no other Bettas in the same tank)... (even with Guppies)

If this statement is made..... Someone will immediately confront you, as they have experienced differently.....but, in my almost 40years breeding/rearing/keeping them..... In my mind I am not lying......but to the next person???

The quote below was made by a renowned specialist in fishkeeping circles (specialising in Corydoras) and I associated with it to the extent that I immediately e-mailed him and asked for permission to use his quote..... It sums up exactly my sentiments, and I would not be able to have expressed it in a better way.

â€My knowledge is narrowly focused and I'm not one for following the traditional rules. I kinda have my own way of doing things, which drives a lot of people right up a wall. lol. Hey, it works for me and as I always warn everyone, "Your mileage may vary.".....

Don't believe everything you read on the Internet. lol. - Frank

All I can add to that is "or what you read in books".....

 

well i had the same thing.. some fish just dont act the same way they meant to act.. they said tiger barbs would nip my angels fins but they didn, they said that my neons will school but they dont (well sometimes)..

what im tryin to say is that it varies.. fish have personalities as well.. also, the way u bring them up as well.. ppl/books will say u cant keep neons with angels because they delecasies to them but i have seen on many occasions that ppl have success keeping neons with angels by intro angels after neons or keeping them when they were both small..

 

Fish hardly ever act precisely as they are "meant to", take for example my Shovelnose which shoals with my Arowana and stays active all day. Most cichlids have great diversity in behaviour even within the same tank, reared the same way from the same parents.

 

I agree 100%. I has 2 Oscars. The one I had to put in with my clown knife, because the other kept attacking it. You could keep the one with almost any fish and the other almost tore my hand off when I remover an ornament from his tank. Two same age, same parents fish, with totally different personality...well I guess the right word is fishonallity...lol

 

I miss my 2 Oscars!!

 

Saying that... Nobody would believe me, but I have witnesses..... I kept a pair of 15" Oscars in one of my ponds and to condition them for breeding.... I decided to feed them Platies (of which I had thousands), They just ignored the Platies which eventually started to breed in the Oscar tank with no problem... They eventually multiplied so much, that I had to remove them again... hundreds and hundreds of them.

 

Yep fish have personalitys IME and sometimes they dont conform to the general desciption of the fish,

 

true. i still wouldnt advise anyone put bala sharks or guppies with tiger barbs tho

i would say however, that environment, etc can have a strong influence on fish behavior, also the general timing of when you add fish. if you saw a combination working for someone else it doesnt necessarily mean it can work for you..

when i added my rainbow shark to my 900 tank, the normally peaceful loaches wouldnt have it, even the tinfoils nipped him and really gave him a hard time, but when i got my new tank, i put them all in the new tank at the same time and they got along like a house on fire, clearly there were territory issues initially, so, the same fish, new tank, totally different behavior.

 

I had a laugh yesterday, I have a red coral (artificial) sitting in the corner of the tank....I moved it up to my shipwreck and kind of forgot it there, along came the Covict...stopped in his tracks! He just could not belief that this monstrosity just suddenly appeared!! He inspected and stopped all the rest of his mates to come near the coral...My wife and I really laughed at his behaviour....