shollia

Alrighty, so when we thought our main tank was done cycling, we went out and got 3 male guppies (no more babies here! lol).
They're in the quarantine/hospital right now.
Anywho! My poor little finrot girl danio is in there with them as well being treated a 2nd time since her finrot didn't go away the first time.
She was very nervous and darted around all over the place in the tank. Mainly just keeping to herself and waiting for me to feed her like the good little oinker she is.

When the guppies finally settled in after we got them, I noticed that they were very unafraid and playful fish. When doing water changes, I take a cup and scoop out the water. They would come right up to the cup and investigate. They also LOVE playing in the bubbles made by the airstone and love playing in the flow of water made from when I'm putting water back into the tank.
The danio would just dart everywhere trying to get away.

But tonight.. I noticed some really big differences in her.
I did a water change as usual and to my surprise, there my danio gal is right along side the guppies! I didn't think too much of it, so took out more water etc.
When I started putting water back in, there she was again. Right along side the guppies playing in the water flow.
Again, I didn't think much of it (was too busy changing the water).

After the tank was refilled, I went back to watch some tv, then came back to watch them for a little bit.. and what do I see?
She's actually playing in the bubbles from the airstone! AND she's playing with the guppies!!* She'd do what they do in the bubbles, let it take her to the top and then fight her way through the current back towards the bottom. Also dart in and out of the bubbles. She also was doing this circle 'dance' thing with one of them.

It was all very VERY cute to watch.

I'm really interested to see what happens when they all eventually go into the main tank. Will she school with the guppies? Or will she go back to the danios?

I'm just kinda worried that my big Bully danio is going to pick on the guppies too much. If so.. bf is going to have to get a tank for them, which he isn't gonna want to do at all (since he's spend a ton of money already on aquarium stuff heh).*

Anywho! Just wanted to share that!
I remember reading other peoples posts about their own fish doing similar things and just found it SO cute and am very glad I got to witness something like it firsthand

schiz

Fish do sometimes make the strangest friends. I see this mostly with my schooling fish. In my large tank I have 6 danios, 3 neons, and 3 balloon belly mollies. The danios came first and had the run of the 55g all by themselves for a while so needless to say they were not happy when I added the neons and mollies. But after about two days they all starting running in one big pack with the very slow(unless food is involved) mollies trying their best to keep up. Same as yours the danios passed on the look how fun these bubbles can be game to the others, although I have yet to see one of the mollies actually make it through the bubbles, mostly they just get shot to the surface.
But for pure mischief the mollies in my tank can be beat. Their favorite game to play is sneak up on the gourami. All three of them get in a line side by side and slowly get as close as they can to the gourami before she turns around then they scatter like crazy. Needless to say with all the active fish in the tank the gourami is thankful to have some quite spaces that the little pests know are off-limits.
But the strangest pairing I have ever seen was my gourami and pond comet, I orginally had my 10g tank as a tropical tank with the gourami and my bronze cory in it, but when Ruby(comet) came along I was in the process of moving them to my 55g so for about 2-3 weeks the comet, gourami, and cory lived together while I added my less aggresive fish first. When I finally moved the gourami(she went last) and completely changed the 10g to a coldwater tank until I can get my ponds up and going the comet and gourami sulked for weeks after they were parted, so I guess strange pairings aren't all that uncommon. But I must say Ruby was unhappy to see the other goldfish come to badly overstock the 10g but she only has to wait about 2 more weeks and they are getting two 50-75 gallon ponds all to themselves.

Whats sad is I only have about 30in of fish in my 55g and I am kinda scared to add any more fish since everyone is happy and get along so well, the only thing I had thought about is filling out the schools, something like 3 more balloon mollies and about 3 more danios. No more tetras though I have never had any luck keeping them alive, anything else yes but tetra keeping eludes me. I did however add some snails last night(so soon I will have 500 snails), but I still have to wait about a month for them to start shipping clams to my area again.

Sorry such long post but bored at work , I love working for the state!