New Evidence of Play Behavior in Cichlids
 

After Hurricane Sandy resulted in the death of my Midas Cichlid, Dogface, who was the subject of previous publications on playing baseball with an airstone, I moved my Red Texas Cichlid into the vacant tank. He has been digging a lot, and today he dug up the old "baseball bat," a Whisper filter intake buried under all the gravel. As of today (New Year's Eve) he has been holding onto it with his mouth and dragging it back and forth across half the tank, and has picked it up and dropped it a few times. He also has waved his head and body pressed up against the end of the tube.

THOSE. FISH LOVE TO DIG AND KNOCK THINGS AROUND I HAD A ROSE QUEEN AKA RED DEVIL AND A FLOWERHORN 6 INCH AND THAT'S ALL THEY DID ; move gravel from 1 side to the other. And anything else in there way👻👻now I have Africans they r not as rough😎😎👍👍

Not in His Way
 

This item was not in his way. He could easily have dragged it to a corner if he didn't want want to explore it. My interpretation was that it was curious about something it hadn't ever seen before.

I've been studying Amphilophine( and Flowerhorn) behavior for 15 years. I've seen orchestrated digging between a male and female Flowerhorn which obviously required some type of communication. A have one Floewrhorn who makes a clicking sound after he eats a Cichlid Stick, but is quiet whenever he eats anything else. George Barlow estimated that these cichlids have a vocabulary of about 16 noises, most of which are subsonic. Having seen this fish's predecessorhit an air stone out of the tank with the same piece of plastic, I don't believe that these acts conform to random behavior.

red texas are great looking fish
they are pretty aggresive right

Red Texas Cichlid
 

They are about as aggressive as Flowerhorns. I've crossbred them, but sometimes they fight. Whoever is larger usually wins.

breeeding
 

flowerhorn and texas mixed sound cool