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The fish attack!!!

I haven't had any all-out assaults on my hands, but almost all of my fish
get in on the action when I'm pruning and arranging.  First off, I always
stick around when I feed my fish, and almost all of them recognize me as
"the big thing that brings food".  The only fish that almost never show
themselves are the pair of spotted Raphael cats, who have little homes in
the driftwood, and are impossible to remove from said homes.  They lock
their spines out to the sides, and are impossible to move without killing
them, although a direct, sustained water current will eventually convince
them to seek a less turbulent hiding place.  If you take the wood out of the
tank, they bark, which is pretty interesting.  But I digress.  Whenever I
stick my hands into the tank, the first fish on-scene are the 15 young SAEs,
who nibble at the hair on my arm, perhaps mistaking it for >hair< algae.
LOL!!  If I just stick my hand in, they rove all over my fingers, nibbling
furiously, which tickles more than a little.  The rainbow shark is usually
next, randomly nibbling at the air bubbles on my arm.  Pretty soon, the
Congo tetras come over, and that's when the party starts.  It's a regular
air bubble feeding-frenzy.  The gouramis occasionally take a peck or two,
along with the barbs.  I'll have to take a picture of my arm covered in fish
sometime.  The only fish that I am somewhat wary of is the 9-inch black
shark in residence.  Fortunately, he doesn't often try to groom my arm like
the SAEs.  That can hurt. :)  Now a friend of mine had a ~20 inch pacu that
was not very keen of eyesight...  Hehe.

Matt



>Anyway, the annoying thing I encountered whilst trimming was a new pair of
>blue rams, which I added to the tank about a week ago, decided to wage an
>attack on me. I didn't mind the barbs, which will come and nip here and
>there. I didn't mind the otocinclus, while I had my hand in far too much
>removing gravel and leaves with hair algae, who used to come and try to
suck
>onto my hand. But it was a bit disarming to find the rams (both) attacking
>repeatedly while I was trying to dig out those little holes and place a cut
>stem and cover it back up. They'd be at it repeatedly during the entire
>process. Of course, it's not really paintful, but I guess I saw Jaws too
many
>times.
>
>I wonder if anyone has piranhas in a planted tank?
>
>Sylvia