Aggressive Behaviour of Flowerhorn
I have heard a lot about the behavioral pattern of Flowerhorn and its aggressive temperament, which makes it one of the most unaccepted fish in any community tank. These are considered to be one of the truest of all readings in the realm of aquarium fish keeping. According to me, this is the personality trait of the fish itself. And not only, this breed, but a number of other breeds as well. To see the natural glow or color pattern in flowerhorns, it is necessary to keep the fish within a small confinement. Thais has been the general concept being spread out by per shops. This is substantiated with the argument that, the limited space would give the flowerhorn a typical structure and would bring out its actual color pattern. Let us understand more of this hybrid.
As per numerous articles and experienced aquarist’s comments flowerhorn’s are the most aggressive fish in among the fish community. Their color pattern depicts the type and nature they are going to exhibit in the future course of time. As a generalized assumption the nature of each fish species can be segregated as aggressive, semi-aggressive or calm. In real this behavioral pattern changes undoubtedly with space and environment. It has been noticed that the most decent of fishes, which never attack anyone, suddenly turned hostile towards its inmates. This is where most of the theories put forth by numerous experts go wrong. This is one scenario, in the other; the species tends to stay dormant or submissive in along with its inmates. To understand this typical behavior we can put up the basic psychological analysis of any creature. In the wild we see a lot of fishes living together, most of them in colonies. The behavior of fishes staying in colonies, usually don’t display high level of aggressiveness as a common pattern dominates each one’s behavior or personality. This pattern conceptualizes the behavioral symptoms that it is going to exhibit in the future course in the colony.
I have heard and seen a lot of people giving horrible names to flowerhorn, but after all it is something which we have created and we are responsible for its present behaviour, whether it is aggressive or non aggressive. Let us keep aside all these comments about the fish and let us see things from a new perspective. We have seen flowerhorn’s killing other fishes, when kept together. In here numerous concepts comes into picture pertaining to its behavior, first the theory of dominance takes place “Survival of the fittest” or “the powerful would dominate over the weaker”. But we see a lot more than this, where the cichlid tends to kill other fishes. This behavior is the cause of a modified or artificial conditioning provided to the fish, which has made it much more hostile or aggressive.
Territorial conflict is a common term in these cases, but at the same time, too much of over conditioning, in an unexpected environment, would definitely make a big difference. Flowerhorns being kept in limited spaces tend to undergo a higher level of frustration and mental pressure in comparison to any other fishes. Being a hybrid, these fishes are intellectually much more efficient, as they carry the genetic inheritance from two or more species. It should be understood that a healthy female always chooses the most healthy and powerful male in among the group, as that would highly determine the quality of new generation in form of eggs and babies. And every time these hybrids follow the same behaviour, further modifications would be visible in the fishes. Well all these qualify the term intellect, when it comes to hybrid fishes.
In the above paragraph it is understood that these hybrids exhibit high degree of intellect, it’s a clear assumption that these traits would also accompany the behavioral modifications also, where they would be much more dominant and territorial than their parents. Psychologically and physiologically these fishes exhibits a pattern which are similar to a superior creature. I cannot compare them with humans as the behavior is much more sophisticated and complex. But to a certain degree these fishes are displaying the signs of a complex behavioral pattern. The modifications that took place have been the result of long term interpretation of the unexpected homeostasis, for the cichlid. Homeostasis means, creating a balance between the external and internal environment, and flowerhorns have undergone a lot of experimental conditioning that has led to an unexpected change in personality. Each of these hybrids is intellectually capable in a distinct manner, each displaying a set of different traits and features. The most distinct is the power play behavior that overrules the other features. In here these hybrids have don’t have any undesirable traits that can be overshadowed with time as this behavior has been the accepted nature of the fishes.
In this breed a major qualitative change have taken place with the rapid or radical alteration of its habitat that has further affected its quality of its adjustment. This has been possible with the intensification of the environmental pressure, through limited space and few other reasons, which has been a matter of concern over the period of time. So at the end we can understand that after this level of elevated pressure, and modifications, a creature will definitely display an aggravated behavior, and this would not change overnight, as this is something which has taken generations to develop.