Apisto Bitaeniata Tefe Agression & Feeding Issues

[TankWatcher]

Hello, I hope someone can help with advice.

I have a juvi pair of Apisto Bitaeniata Tefe in a 90L tank, with the only other residents being 2 otos. The female is not at all tolerant of the male. She must have let him close on at least one occasion, as within a couple of days in my tank there were eggs, but she has eaten them now. (I saw her, so I know it was her eating them)

But whenever she sees the male, she goes after him. He doesn't need to be anywhere near her, but if she spots him on the other side of the tank she charges, tries to nip his retreating tail & chases him away. He is bigger than her, but seems a wimp & just runs away. Sometimes, she just goes looking for him to make sure he knows he cannot come out of his hiding spot.

To try & help, the tank is heavily planted, with lots of hiding spots & visual barriers.

I don't have a spare empty tank, but thought perhaps I should move her into my community tank for a couple of months (provided she behaves in there). Then after the male has had a couple of months alone to establish his territory & maybe even mature a bit, I could move her back in & watch what happens.

Or should I leave them - someone else on a different forum suggested I put the male in a breeding net? Should I put dithers in there - the reason I haven't is that I wanted to establish I could feed them, before I put in competion to get to the food first.

Whilst initially I thought fry would be great (still would be), my first preference is that both fish survive & are happy, even if they never breed & have to live separately.

This is my first time of apisto aggression (my cockatoo's are great buddies), so advice on what I should do & how worried I should be about the females aggression would be greatly apprecited.

LFS told me these are tank bred, not wild caught. Feeding these fish is also a problem. The don't seem to recognise pellets as food, which I thought tank bred ones would. I drop the food, so that it will float down right in front of their face, but whether by accident or choice, they always turn away. After 5days of not eating, I gave in & bought some brine shrimp & they have eaten that, but I don't think it's good for that to be their only food. How can I get them to eat the pellets (the pellets are small - I don't know if you know the brand, but I'm trying to use Spectrum pellets for small fish. I also have Spectrum flakes)?

Any help or advice would be gratefully appreciated. thank you.

 

[Apistomaster]

Tankwatcher,
Maybe you A. bitaenia are t.r. but they are far from wild yet. They were raised on live food and will always prefer it, indeed for the long run, may require it, with some frozen blodworms worked in from time to time. Sharpen up your brineshrimp hatching technique as the adults will eat a lot of them and you'll need them and microworms for their fry.
There are as many ways to deal with aggression as there are apisto breeders.
Since your female recently spawned she really can't help herself from doing what the genes and hormones impose. My suggestion is to put her in a net breeder and leave the male in the tank. Give here a little pvc pipe cave and sprigs of plants while she cools off. Also It would not hurt to provive a thin sheet of plexi or similar to cover the bottom mesh and allow for a thin layer of fine gravel and a cuple small Cory cats to keep her company and try to re-introduce the pair in about a month. So much for my take. Good luck.

 

[RiC]

Maybe dithers could help also.
I have the very same situation with my agassizii in a 20g (not the feeding part though); since they breed all the time, the female is always in a "dominant" position and the male always chasen away/attacked, although he is three times her size. Nothing too serious though, but still, the level of aggression is high. I have a school of hatchetfish with them, and they seem to divert the attention of the female from being always focused on the male (poor them, their fins look pretty bad!)

As to the food, you may try Total SpectraMax by Wardley (flakes). Mine, who are wild caught, just love it. What I do is take some aquarium water into a small plastic jar, mix the flakes with it and then feed with a pipette; it works really well.

 

[TankWatcher]

Thanks to both of you for your replies. For the moment things are ok in the tank. By a combination of a trial period of separation (female removed into net breeder) & the addition of 2 pencil fish as dithers, things are going ok in there now.

Feeding has been sorted out & they are thriving on various hikari frozen products. I have tried to "trick" them into the processed food - but have not succeeded even once on that front.

Thanks for your help.