# Maingano "circling" behavior?



## cichfeeble (Jan 12, 2010)

I have only had my Mainganos for about 4 days, so this is all new to me. Tonight I saw two of them swimming in a tight circle, very close to the rocks, pretty much swimming head-to-tail and repeated loops that were only about one body length in diameter. Both of these are strongly colored mainganos. I am not sure about the gender. One of them has a couple of egg spots, and the other one does not.

Is this mating behavior? Or some other type of activity? There was no aggression involved. But I watched for a couple of minutes, and this went on non-stop.

Thanks!


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

The circling is seen with both mating and aggression. If the circles were fast, it was aggression. Just because there was no physical damage does not mean there is no aggression. Once you watch two males do this hour after hour and day after day and see the sub-dom become exhausted you will understand how it is aggression.

If the circles were slow with pauses to lay eggs and pick them up, then it was mating.

Fish do this from the time they are spit nearly.


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## Kanorin (Apr 8, 2008)

I was gonna comment on this, but DJ said basically everything I had in mind. +1 DJ's response


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## cichfeeble (Jan 12, 2010)

DJRansome said:


> The circling is seen with both mating and aggression. If the circles were fast, it was aggression. Just because there was no physical damage does not mean there is no aggression. Once you watch two males do this hour after hour and day after day and see the sub-dom become exhausted you will understand how it is aggression.
> 
> If the circles were slow with pauses to lay eggs and pick them up, then it was mating.
> 
> Fish do this from the time they are spit nearly.


Thanks. That's really interesting. I had not seen that before with any of the fish I had, except possibly the Julidochromis pair that I recently sold. The behavior I was seeing with these 2 Mainganos was definitely slow circling, but I didn't watch them long enough to notice if there were any egg-related activities.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

During a spawn the eggs are laid about every 2nd or 3rd circle. So you would have noticed.


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## marik (Sep 15, 2009)

my dems slow circle each other some of the time but i think it's an aggression thing with them. I've only noticed it with my sub dom males. My dominant male chases the females around and doesn't really bother the other males too much.

I watched a couple of them circle the other day and they were so focused on circling each other, one of them ran his face right into the side of a rock.

I actually witnessed my male acei fast circle my female acei. It was actually pretty cool but i was worried he would tear her up. I think it was a mating thing with them cuz soon afterward, she was holding.

Is your circling like this?


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