When I first started the hobby, I had a sixline wrasse, a citron goby and anthuas, basselets, a fire fish, and a mandarin in a 48 gallon bow front. The sixline was a model citizen for 6 months, then became a nightmare all of a sudden.
He started attacking the mandarin, and would rip at his fins and aspiration tubes on his sides. I could never catch the sixline and within 3 days the mandarin was dead.
After that he went after the fire fish and stressed it to death. He then went after the Mathias but could never catch them, so they always escaped.
He then turned his sights onto the citron (my wife’s favorite fish that she picked out herself). I caught the sixline chargin toward the citron, but, all of a sudden the citron dashes forward toward the sixline and bites him right on the side fins. I then proceeded to sit and watch for a half hour as the citron goby chased the sixline around the tank, every time he caught up with the sixline he’d bite at its tail. After a half hour the sixline found a nook in the rockwork the citron couldn’t get to, and the sixline hid in there for what I believe was the rest of the night. I walked away smiling.
after that day, the citron goby left the sixline alone, and the sixline never went close to the citron, but every time the sixline would start dashing toward another fish with aggression, in would dash the citron, almost always hitting the sixline on the side and then chasing him back into that nook for at least a few hours, then the sixline would come back out and be a model citizen again. It was experiences like that that kept me in the hobby 9 years later.
I eventually caught the sixline and turned it into an lfs, and I lost the citron to a brooklynella outbreak 3 years later. It broke my wife’s heart and it took her 2 years before she would even take a liking to any other fish. 6 years later and I’m still looking for that citron goby reincarnated.
take your pick as to who you think was more aggressive.
