Odd behavior?

[Peter Kakouris]

I have just seen a male P. blue line/ bintan (still not sure which species exactly- but definitely a male) swmiming around a small area with what appears to be eggs attached? to his mouth… That isn’t a form of egg care i’ve read about here at all. is this something anybody else has seen? Do paros change the placement of eggs after they’ve been laid? I’d appreciate any insight. I’ve tried to get non-blurry video, but alas, i can’t focus as close as i’d like without blurriness rendering the “eggs” (at least that’s what they look like to me) indistinct.

[helene schoubye]

Moving eggs is not really normal behaviour for paros, but it can happen. I have had it happen a few times.
What could trigger such behaviour could be one of the following :
1 Young and confused male. You can see often that it does take the male a few tries before he gets it right.
2. Too many available caves making the choice difficult 🙂 … you do see that sometimes, – that if there are many choices of caves, for some reason the male decides that his first choice isnt the right one, – and he may then try to move the rest. Usually the best is to actually not provide too many obtions, – if the cave is good enough, one choice is fine.
If also there are more fish in the tank, or more males, this can also lead to this insecurity regarding whether the place might not be good enough.

But it is not common at all, and even if all the circumstances may be true, it might not happen to all males. But I wouldnt worry.

Expect you say it seems like an egg. That would of course be a priority to figure out. And that it is not something else, like a skinproblem or blister or something ?

[Peter Finke]

I gladly confirm Helene’s message. Transporting eggs or even larvae to another cave has been witnessed by several people concerning several species. Rather often it is to be seen with P. ornaticauda and P. parvulus, but with other species, too. Helene is right in presuming that the presence of several caves adds to the probability of eggs being transported from the one to the other. This is no odd behaviour at all. Mostly, we breed Paros in small tanks with one cave only. But in nature, roots, leaves of submerse or emerse plants, wooden leftovers of different origins normally form a variety of natural caves, and enimies in the water and the air are abundant. So males seeking security for their offspring are quite normal a thing.

[Peter Kakouris]

Thank you both for the response! I guess i’ll be removing some cave choices then 🙂 Currently there are (in a 20 gallon Long aquarium) 3 coconut shell huts, 5 small ceramic pots, and 3 small PVC elbows. With 3-4 visible males, i thought having more hiding choices would facilitate breeding.

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