I am having the best time watching (and anthropomorphizing) my fathead minnows, they are in a 29-gallon tank on the dresser by my futon, so I can sit and watch them. Perhaps I am going crazy but like centrarchids they seem to have personalities, some level of intelligence (or at least idiosyncrasies), and moods. The father loves a cave I put in there for breeding, but they decided to lay eggs on the magnetic algae scraper. Now he is done he is taking over the cave again but makes the occasional trip out to swim with the girls or if he sees the food jar come close so he will be fed. The cave is eggless. Sometimes he sulks in the cave, with his tail to everyone, but usually sits there with just his head out ready to go peck your finger if you get near. Of course, when I get close to look they start darting about thinking the food jar will come out. They are indeed a colorful minnow! The male has a small pink VIE tag on him, so he is also visually colorful. Lasted unbroken 6 months so far and through the change in breeding morphology. He was used in a mark-recapture population count when I got him.

shawn

If you are going crazy, I doubt I would be sane enough to notice. Any type of fish I end up keeping, I enjoy watching them at length and appreciating they're individual personalities also. You compared them to centrarchids, do they also tend to have that type of aggression? I've never kept any wild caught fatheads, but the rosy reds I've kept seemed to be more aggressive than most other minnows I've kept; more aggressive toward each other and other minnows. I wasn't sure if that was the nature of fatheads or if it somehow happened through generations of captive breeding.

Very interesting observations and accounts. Thanks.

Steve.

Minnows in an all minnow tank tend to have an odd type of agression. it's not the "chase away anyone from my spot" type agression sunfish have except in the odd occasions when a male is strongly into breeding mode.

Back when my 55 housed minnows I used to notice a mixed minnow school seemed to act like a football game with them all chasing each other until a pecking order is established. Once it is established the rule of who is dominant seems very flexible with chases being common. New minnows are always subjective to hazing by the others to determine their place.

Even stranger are the rare minnow processions where all the minnows school up (including the algea eater I got to control algea) and swim together.

Sadly add an agressive non minnow species and all this gets ruined. The Minnow school then defaults to defensive schools, hovering over structures and in corners.

I wish I had a second 44 for minnows, my 29 is not big enough to show the true depth of their behaviors.

Also surprising was the minnows penchant for devouring BB shelled nuisance snails. The last nuisance snail I had passed through so many mouths before hitting the bottom I had no idea which one ate it.

I've got a combination of emerald shiners, striped shiners and juvenile creek chubs in my 45 with my male longear. Strangely, he doesn't pay attention to them or see them as food, so they go about their lives quite freely. Cold rainy days like today are a great time to just sit and watch their interactions and behaviors. Unfortunately, whenever I've had rosy reds in the mix, they were tail nippers, even to the point of some of the victims completely losing their tails before I caught it. Fortunately, the tails grew back after the aggressors were removed. Luckily, these are the only minnows I've had trouble with. As a whole, I really enjoy watching them.

Steve

Yes, fathead minnows in breeding mode can get extremely aggressive. I have seen breeding males in a local pond that has the first 5 -6 feet from shore covered with fist to soccer ball size rocks lining the bottom, guarding their individual rock with great gusto even running off full size bluegills. It's quite a sight seeing a little 2.5 inch minnow bully a 8 inch and larger bluegill quickly running them off to deeper water.

Edited by keepnatives, 03 October 2011 - 06:38 PM.