I purchased a female and male set of agassizii around November and put them into my 29G planted tank. Their other tank mates are red wag platies, neons, zebra danios, and otos. When I purchased the fish, the female appeared to be full grown and the male was very small, about the size of my neons. He is now somewhere in between that size and full grown. His coloration is not very bright yet. My main problem with these two is how aggressive the female is. She has a cave in a far corner of the tank, but has seemed to take the entire tank to be her territory. She generally doesn't pay much attention to the other species in the tank, but at times she will go out searching for the male to chase and harass him. He doesn't do much to fight back and typically swims off to go hide. He is a bit timid now and has a somewhat frayed tail fin. I'm worried about him getting bullied to death by her. I am dosing melafix and keeping the water very clean to try to help him recover, but it seems like every day I see her trying to chase him at least once. I have been planning on rescaping the tank, so I am hoping that will mix up the territories, but I am afraid of her claiming the entire tank again. I am hoping this will stop when he gets to be about her size, but I am wondering if I need to keep a divider in the tank until then. New to agassizii so any tips would be very much appreciated.
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Aggressive A. agassizii Female
- Thread starter rhenzel
- Start date
- Messages
- 441
- Location
- STOCKHOLM , SWEDEN
Hi rhenzel + all..
In my opinion.. the agassizii behaves like a lot of other Apistos..
If the female is bigger than the rest of the Apistos in the tank, she will most likely be the strongest one and then keep waiting for
a big or dominant male to show her that he can manage their future/coming territory..
That is often made up in some kind of a "fight".. Then when the male-dominant-hierarchy is established... one will only have to feed them for a while
and wait for her to get ready for spawning..( loaded/reloaded with eggs!!)
I guess that the easiest way for you to get a fast result is to change the small male to a big one.. (if possible..)
Otherwise you will have spend a lot of time just feeding and waiting... And she will probably continue to harass and hurt him..
Often our tanks are a little too small to give the Apistos the same space as in the nature..or what is needed !!
So a common tank will almost never be enough if we keep several Apisto-individuals... than to a "functioning"/syncronized couple or group..
If one try to fix the "balance" when the fishes are young/small in size, it may work...
(A small male can then grow bigger as he gets stronger or more confident in himself..)
I have done that with small Apistos.. But now..with the female fully grown.. I would recommend you to boost his size in another tank
or replace him as mentioned..
If you can..?? This seems to be the easiest way .. (I have done both of these alternatives earlier..)
/Micke
In my opinion.. the agassizii behaves like a lot of other Apistos..
If the female is bigger than the rest of the Apistos in the tank, she will most likely be the strongest one and then keep waiting for
a big or dominant male to show her that he can manage their future/coming territory..
That is often made up in some kind of a "fight".. Then when the male-dominant-hierarchy is established... one will only have to feed them for a while
and wait for her to get ready for spawning..( loaded/reloaded with eggs!!)
I guess that the easiest way for you to get a fast result is to change the small male to a big one.. (if possible..)
Otherwise you will have spend a lot of time just feeding and waiting... And she will probably continue to harass and hurt him..
Often our tanks are a little too small to give the Apistos the same space as in the nature..or what is needed !!
So a common tank will almost never be enough if we keep several Apisto-individuals... than to a "functioning"/syncronized couple or group..
If one try to fix the "balance" when the fishes are young/small in size, it may work...
(A small male can then grow bigger as he gets stronger or more confident in himself..)
I have done that with small Apistos.. But now..with the female fully grown.. I would recommend you to boost his size in another tank
or replace him as mentioned..
If you can..?? This seems to be the easiest way .. (I have done both of these alternatives earlier..)
/Micke
