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Re: SAE's behaving badly?
> From: Roxanne Bittman <rbittman at crackle_dfg.ca.gov>
> Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 16:57:40 PDT
>
> I have four SAE's in a 40 gallon tank; I purchased them from Albany
> Aquarium, and they import them from Singapore and are supposed to be
> the "real" thing.
>
> Anyway, they routinely nip leaves or parts of leaves off of my
> otherwise lovely Rotala wallichii. Sometimes they nip Mayaca
> fluviatilis too. Some stems are completely naked!
Bummer. This never used to be a problem until Steve Pushak mentioned
that his SAEs were eating Mayaca. Shortly after responding that my
SAEs never did this, they started eating *my* Mayaca. I guess we have
a new net.curse, thanks to Steve (too bad he's on vacation and can't
read this :-). From now on, we'll have to either type S*E or M*y*c*
to avoid this problem.
> Suggestions appreciated; I'd also like to hear if anyone else has
> noticed this type of behavior in these fish.
All seriousness aside. Olga Betts has a beautiful stand of m*y*c* and
her S*Es never touch it. I don't know what triggers this bad
behavior. You have to admit, R. w*llichii and m*y*c* have algae-like
characteristics with their fine leaf structure. If I were an S*E, I
would certainly prefer tasty higher order plants like these to that
nasty old algae.
Perhaps if you moved the plants to a temporary tank until the fish
lost their taste for them, they would learn to eat their rightfull
food.
George