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In the past few days, I've noticed that a few of my white clouds have actually become quite aggressive to one another.

One, in particular, has staked a territory by the bottom of one of the filter sponges, and if another white cloud comes near, he will chase it clear to the other side of the tank, all the while flashing and flaring his fins.

Just to see if the environment has changed at all, I ran water tests, but they are still consisent with what they have always been:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: Around 20
pH: 7.2
Temp: 72

This is in my heavily planted 38 gallon river tank. The occupants are roughly 20 white clouds (it's really hard to keep an accurate count ) and 4 hillstream loaches. Nothing has been added to the tank (fish, plants, decorations, or otherwise) for about 2 months.

I know this isn't spawning behaviour, because they have spawned several times in the tank, and I know what that looks like.

I'm not overly concerned about it at this point. It doesn't appear that the aggressive ones are doing any damage, but I just don't want the ones being chased to get so stressed as to become sick.

So, if anyone has had a similar experience to this, or even has the slightest inkling as to what this may be, please share. I'm rather at a loss for what to do.

Any help at all is greatly appreciated.

Joe Potato

I've seen the same thing with my White Clouds.
I started with 6 in a cycled 10 gallon. 5 were male and only 1 female. There was constant battling between the males. And 2 of them ended up dying from stress.
I then added 2 new White Clouds. 1 male and 1 female. A few weeks later, another one of the males died.
I then decided to leave it alone for awhile and see what happens.
It's been about 9 months since the last death. The remaining males do seem to have a dominance order. There is one "king" of the tank which chases the others into hiding. There never is any physical damage, but there definitly is a stress issue with the victims. Just last week, the lowest ranking male was looking very weak. I thought he was a goner. But now he looks better then ever and is eating like a pig.
I still keep thinking about adding 2 or 3 more to this tank. But this time I will make sure the new ones are all female. I thinking/hoping that might level out the dominance of the top male.

There is always a fight for dominance going on in my tank. They may break and be peaceful a few weeks, but inevitably, it starts back up. The lesser male has many battle scars and a permanent growth in an area where he took repeated beatings. It's been growing slowly for almost 2 years so I'm not concerned with it, but definitely from being hit so many times.

I don't think it is odd at all, especially with so many white clouds.

I only thought it was odd simply because it just started, while the tank has been set up for about 5 months.

Anyway, good to know that it is a normal occurance. It's only one or two who are doing it now. Hopefully it stays that way.

Joe Potato

That is not uncommon. I added a batch of thirty and the white clouds staked territories everywhere in the tank. Also they didn't mix well with my neons.