Who knew a royal gramma would draw the ire of an Atlantic blue tang in a tank full of other fish?!I love marine fish. I really do. They’ve been part of my life for decades, and observing their beauty and behavior both in the wild and in aquaria seems to fulfill some primal need in me that’s, frankly, impossible to characterize. But then again, sometimes those scaly little creatures do things that absolutely drive me to distraction. Here are five of them that might sound familiar to my fellow salties: 1. Irritating repetitive behaviorThis refers to some type of aggravating perseverative activity exhibited by a fish, such as swimming up and down one corner of the tank or around the same object in the tank over and over again—instead of exploring the entire system available to them. Sometimes you can make sense of this behavior, for example if the specimen is nervous after just being introduced, attempting to evade a bullying tankmate or other stressful stimulus, trying to spar with its own reflection, or, in the case of naturally active species, just burning off energy. But other times, I can discern no particular rhyme or reason to it.
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