GEESE! More bad luck w/P.t. Lobes!

[Orchid]

I can't believe the bad luck I am having with this species of fish :cry:.
Yesterday the male P.t. Lobe slaughtered the female. I found her with all her fins shredded.

They were getting along so well, she would follow him around like a puppy, they would swim together, each would do the little shimmy dance to the other or they would do the dance together. Then he just kills her.

I know this happens in the cichlid world but is this behavior common?

Will he always be a "wife" killer?

Since I am going up north this weekend, the lfs I purchased the pair from say they will let me trade him in. Otherwise it could be months before I get him another female. I am not sure I want to even attempt pairing him if he is eventually going to kill her. This just sucks. Hmmmm, I am beginning to think a higher force is trying to tell me something about this species. After two failures, perhaps I should just stick with South American dwarves.

 

[tjudy]

Sorry to hear about your loss. I have two pairs of lobes that do not fight. I also have a pair of nyete with a male that is brutal to the female. My other pair of nyete are fine with each other. I really think that mate aggression is an individual behavior in kribs. I have never seen a pattern, other than the taeniatus seem more aggressive towards females than subocellatus or pulcher.

When I have had a pair that has a male (or female) that gets nasty, I have had some success with giving them another cichlid as a target. My pair of Pel. sp. aff. pulcher did not setle down and get along until after I placed a second female in the tank. This 'common enemy' made the difference.

 

[Randall]

Pv. taen. behavior

Dear Chris,

So sorry to learn of your rotten luck (again). If I may, perhaps a few pointers may help.

My new pair of wild juvenile Pv. taen. "Lobe" successfully spawned the first week I plopped them into their tank. Of course, "their" tank is 120 gallons, very heavily planted and has soft acidic water treated with peat moss. I think tank size may have something to do with diffussing aggression. In this regard less may not be more, but rather more is more. You might try placing your Pv. taen. pairs in larger, heavily planted and decorated tanks with appropriate dithers and/or attack fish, until you are quite sure that they are a compatible pair. In what size tank are your lobes housed, please?

On the other hand, if a tank is too busy/over populated, that can prevent a pair from spawning, and social problems can arise.

Sometimes, it's not a good idea to pair up sexually immature fish. If the male, for example, is ready to spawn and the female isn't, she may be in for some trouble. From what you've described, perhaps the female was ready to spawn, but the male wasn't. I don't know for sure if such a scenario can be troublesome, but at least in your case, the end result was devastating. Again, here dithers may prove helpful, as well as plenty of cover.

Temperature may or not be related to what you've experienced, but from my experience, Pv. species will spawn just fine in 76-degree water. Please remember that these are riverine fish and not Betta sp. that prefer hot, stagnant water. Keeping your fish in cooler water may prove of benefit because both male and female will take their time, mature a bit, fatten up and spawn when both are ready. I consider this treatment preferable to raising temperature in an effort to induce spawning before the pair is ready.

Please don't give up on Westies. It's unfortunate that your experience with the lobes hasn't worked out to well yet, but it will. With a little fine tuning, your next post here in Forum will be to complain that you have too many fry!

Good luck!

Randall Kohn

 

[Orchid]

Randall,

They were in a 20 long tank that is bordering on heavily planted with several anubias sp, bolbitus, and water onions, driftwood, and an upturned flower pot. I will add more driftwood and a cocunut half or another pot. There is one otto cat.

The temp is between 79 and 80 degrees, I now realize a bit high.
I will put dithers in there, but I'd hate to put in a target fish that will just get beat up. I want to try again with this genus, especially after veiwing the Ndonga pictures you kindly sent (thank you), they are such a charming and animated fish, but these quick losses are hurting the wallet.

The lfs that I will be taking the male back to doesn't have any P.t. species right now so I'll focus on beefing up the tank's accessories. Who knows, maybe I'll fall in love with another westy sp in the meantime.

 

[Randall]

Chris's Plan

Dear Chris,

It's nice to hear that you're still rearing to go. As for your wallet, not to worry, a coconut shell and another clay pot shouldn't set you back too much. As for some dithers, if you're paying more than $5.00 for a few neons or the equivalent, you're paying too much.

Please do take the temperature down a notch; 76 degrees should do it.

When they grow up, I'm happy to send you some of my fry of your choice. The shipping cost is on you.

Keep the faith.

Randall Kohn

 

[Orchid]

I was told that as far as taeniatus are concerned, a big female will kill the male, particullary after a spawn, so you always want small females

Dear Chris,

I've not had that experience, but that doesn't mean that others haven't. The key here is to have a compatible pair. Surely age, size and stage of development come into play. So long as both male and female are appropriately sized for their age and are in synch where sexual maturity is concerned, the chances for a successful spawning are improved.

Pelvicachromis species generally show high levels of sexual dimorphism, so given that a subject pair are about the same age, males are larger than females. With many, if not all, of the taeniatus forms, mature males are generally an inch larger than mature females, so I don't think you need worry about specifically setting out to get yourself a small female.

Hope this helps.

Randall Kohn

 

[Fogelhund]

FWIW - I kept my Pv. t lobe with a dozen Cardinal Tetras and a small group of I. werneri (feather fin rainbows) in a 27 gallon tank. The Pv. lobe spawned fairly regularly, and never bothered the other fish in the tank, though they did make them feel more comfortable in their surroundings. Unfortunately, the male kept on eating the fry :cry: and generally I am very patient about this. Three spawns in succession he ate the fry.

Having bred many other cichlids, particularly Tanginykan substrate spawners for years, I've seen this before, and usually just let the fish work it out until they get it right. I'm not a fish farmer, and enjoy parents raising their fry.

I had decided that the fourth spawn I would remove, just to have some fry, and then I would let the parents work things out from there. Unfortunately, the male killed the female during the fourth spawn.

I've built what I feel is a good tank for my second attempt at Pv. t species (tbd in the future), a 24" x 24" x 12" tall tank, that will be heavily planted.

Anyway, my point was that the Pv. t never bothered the dithers in my tank, though I am far from the expert that some of the others here are.

 

[coenga]

I kept my Pv. t lobe with a dozen Cardinal Tetras

Unfortunately, the male kept on eating the fry

Hi,

did you witness the male eating the fry ?

this question just because I had a similar setup with Pv t moliwe with thirteen (bad luck ) cardinal tetras.
and I witnessed in three days the end of 30 free swimming fries.
Each time that the Pv female was herding the fry in a relative open space place of the tank, the cardinals made a swirling cloud over the fry group. The mother was sometime trying to chase them (but one can try to only touch one of these flashy buggers.. ). And I saw on many occasions one of the cardinals on the border of the cloud which was diving at high speed (stuka like) with deadly accuracy to prey on an isolated teaniatus fry.
The mother could do nothing but watch her fry disappear one by one until the end :cry:
Then the cardinals were given..
And I warn everybody, these so-called dithers are IMHO deadly predators not as idiots as their colors should suggest.
An't they cute miniatures of Piranias ?

my two euro cents

Colin

 

[Orchid]

You're right Colin, tetras are very efficient feeders, I agree with you about their safety as dithers. That is one reason why I have held off on them as a dither in where there may be fry. Many species eat their own eggs and fry if given the chance. The smallest fish can be a feirce predator if they hunt in a pack.

 

[Finatic_LasVegas]

Piranha = Tetra -- small tangent veering off-topic

On a side, note....believe it or not, for those who didn't already know, a Piranha actually IS a tetra. Though they've been granted some individuality in family names, etc. -- they are tetras, in reality. And if anyone wanted a strange tidbit on tetras -- out of all the many species of tetras, the Piranha and the Splash Tetra are the only two that actually exhibit some form of brood care (though the latter is only relating to their pre-hatch management, whereas Piranha males guard free-swimming fry for varying amounts of time). So call Piranhas what you will, but they actually have "cichlid family values"!!!

Sorry to go off-topic, but thought some of you might get a kick out of that -- learned a lot about Piranha when working with them at The Shark Reef in Vegas.

Cheers,
Wendy