Mean Viejita Female.

[Andrew C]

I have a male and female Viejita in a 33G tank by themselves (the info i have on them is they are "MORPH 2", the male is twice the size of the female).
The tank is well planted with lots of wood and 4 flower pot caves.

I did have another pair of apistos in the tank but took them out as the female Viejita was very aggressive to the other apistos, the male Viejita included.
She has not laid eggs as i have checked when cleaning the tank.

She is still very aggressive to the male and he sometimes stands up to her, but he mainly justs runs and hides.

Why is the female so aggressive and is there any chance of them breeding with the female being so aggressive ?

Andrew.

 

[Randall]

Mean viejita

Dear Andrew,

It is possible that you have an incompatible pair. On the other hand, if the female is only half the size of the male, she may be sexually immature and not quite ready to spawn. I'd recommend that you feed them well with highly nutritious foods and perform once weekly partial water changes. This promotes growth.

If the aggession gets out of hand, you might also introduce some dither fish like three small tetras or pencil fish. Their presence will divert the aggession that you describe.

Please be patient and give them a chance to come around. You may be rewarded handsomely for your efforts.

Good luck and please keep us posted.

Randall Kohn

 

[Andrew C]

Thanks Randall
I have four neons in another tank that i can put in with the apistos to see if it helps, and i will feed them a little a few times a day to get the female to grow.

I also have two male cacatuoides in the same tank (they were meant to be M & F), who are always at each other.
But it is nothing like the aggression this female shows, i can only hope she grows out of it.

Andrew.

 

[Leo]

Nice to find such a board with such a specific topic as Dwarf Cichlids!

I had just the same problem with my A. viejitas, only the female became so aggressive that she killed three males! 8O This all happened while she was growing up and did seem much more calm when she grew up. But she killed my interest in A. viejitas so i gave her to a fellow aquarist with a bigger harem of A. viejitas and I hope she'll find a mate there.

BUT now i bought three A. cacatuoides, a male, a female and a very small fish which I'm not yet sure if it's a male or a female. I still had the A. viejita female when these three came to my tank and everything started out just great. Everyone was calm, only the A. viejita was a bit confused and lost her colour when she came upon the A. cacatuoides. Then the A. viejita left and almost at the same time the male died mysteriously, with no sign of ailment. And after that the two A. cacatuoides specimens which were left started fighting each other.

All water conditions are normal, there is dense vegetation and they live with my Rainbowfish (for which the water is a bit soft) and two Plecoltia and they have never confronted other species in any way, they seen undisturbed by the playful fish around them. The only thing which is causing this excessive aggression I can come up with is, that the shops sell random fish which are often so young that you don't know which sex they are (once we got a whole other species of Apisto!!). Buying too few fish ends up with aggressions and violence when the fish don't find suitable mates, and at least here in Finland you could buy all the fish the shop has and still end up with two female and twenty male. Females are very hard to come by, and the case is the same for all Apistos. How to get a hold of formed pairs/harems is beyond me... I don't have the space or the funds to buy up the whole town...

 

[Neil]

Leo,

WELCOME TO THE FORUM

Females are very hard to come by, and the case is the same for all Apistos. How to get a hold of formed pairs/harems is beyond me... I don't have the space or the funds to buy up the whole town...

I don't blame you. Sometimes that is a problem. The best thing that you can do is to look closely at the tank at the LFS with the species that you are interested in. Leave and go home to look at pics of that species in any books of the internet. Maybe read up on the distinguishing features of males vs. females and then go back and look at the tank closely again. If you are prepared with IDing information and you spend some time in front of the tank a couple different times, you may start to see differences that weren't as apparent the first time. Sometimes you may witness behaviors that give you a clue to the gender. Sometimes you just have to go by a feeling of what is what. But pick out the 2 most male-looking fish (maybe the biggest) and the 4 most female-looking fish (maybe the smallest) and go from there.
Unfortunately there is not much that you can do if the fish that you are interested in a very sexually non-dimorphic (similar looking sexes) and the store that you buy them from often has a very poor ratio of one sex to the other.
Arm yourself with information and may the fish Gods be kind to you next time!
Neil

 

[Andrew C]

It must be an incompatable pair of Viejita i have, as the female is still terrorising the male.
I got some tall plants for the tank which was a god send for the male, as the female dosn't seem to notice him as easily hiding at the top of the plants.
I did add a couple of neons to see if it would divert some of the females aggression, but she just ignores them and goes after the male.

The female is yellow all over and has laid a couple of batches of eggs, but they were gone after a couple of days, i checked when cleaning the tank.

Is this just natural behaviour for apistogrammas and i am being over concerned ?

Also, if this is normal behaviour for dwarf cichlids, there larger relatives must be murder at times !

Andrew.

 

[Neil]

Why is the female so aggressive and is there any chance of them breeding with the female being so aggressive ?

Yes, incompatible pairs are rare in apistos. It is usually finding the right methodology of bringing them together. Both mature partners want to spawn and perpetuate their species. It is just that one is sometimes a pill about it. Please read http://www.apistogramma.com/adm2000.htm. This will give you an idea of aggression management. In the story the male is causing the problems, you have a mean female. But the principle is the same. I would pull the female for 3 or 4 days. Let the male start to get some security in the tank. Once you reintroduce the female, who may well be a generally more aggressive fish, the male will have a slight (albeit temporary) advantage. This may be enough to get a viable spawn.
Like people, cichlids have different personalities. Sometimes there is no way to get a chosen male and female together. But that is rare. It usually just requires a little patience and resourcefulness. Good luck.
Neil

 

[Andrew C]

Great article Neil.

I have a breeding trap, and will try that first.
If the breeding trap dosn't work, the female will be moved to another tank for a few days.

Andrew.

 

[aspen]

carefully managing agression is the job of all cichlid keepers. fwiw, i bought pair of viejitas, and would carefully consider buying any more. they are VERY agressive, compared to other more 'likeable' dwarfs. i would split the pair, and try again when the female's blood has cooled a bit. don't let her kill your male.

rick

 

[Andrew C]

I have moved the Viejitas into a 600mm tank with a tank divider in the middle so that they can still see each other.
They both look contented and are not up at the divder displaying to each other, so i will leave it like this for a while, to see if they start displaying to each other through the divider.

Andrew.

 

[MaXoTrAp]

I have a pair of A.Viejita in a 33G tank with some characidae (mostly glowlight tetras) and corydoras. The female apisto is aggressive with the characidae(but i dont care), but not with the male apisto. The problem is i cant get my lazy male to follow the female in one of the caves intented for reproduction. This male is only swimming everywhere, and he doesnt care about the other fishes, including the female apisto. They are in this tank since october 30th, and its always the same story. The female turns yellow, finds a cave, then searches for the male. She finds him, turns around him and shows him her belly. Then she swims to the cave, but that lazy male follows her a few seconds then decides to search for food!!! :roll: Plz help me cuz i cant get that lazy male to do what he was meant to do...

 

[Neil]

MaXoTrAp,

WELCOME TO THE FORUM

Just because you are not seeing any more interest from the male when you are at the tank looking, doesn't necessarily mean that he is not interested. Apistogramma have a suprising array of behaviors associated with their various activities. It wouldn't suprise me a bit if, all of a sudden, you have a fertilized batch of eggs in a cave. It is more a matter of when the female is actually ready to lay. Give it a little time. There is sometimes a big song-and-dance before the actually event.
Neil

 

[MaXoTrAp]

ok, Ill wait some more time, but I had another A.Viejita pair about 2 years ago and the male was much more aggressive and willing to spawn. This one is sooo lazy. I even thought for a while he was sick, but since he eats and there is no apparent problem, ive come to the sad conclusion he's just a very lazy specimen. Hope this will not keep him from spawning his whole life

 

[MaXoTrAp]

aaaaa im angry at him now. Ive tried almost everything, and im planning on buying a target fish soon cuz i really want this viejita to spawn. This is really strange cuz the female is really willing to spawn, maybe i got a homosexual male??? Is this possible??? I read last month they sometimes find homosexual birds, so maybe it is possible for fishes too? Ive easily spawned viejitas in the same tank before, my water is nice and i didnt get any sick fish in years. My last viejita pair died very old(they were already adults when i bought them and i had them for almost 3 years, but had to give many of their babies cuz i only have two tanks) So the male i am complaining about now is one of their babies, and i bought a female from a store cuz i dont want him to spawn with his 3 sisters, which are in the other tank with a nice viejita male i bought(a female had babies in this tank but i couldnt save them cuz i was on a trip when they had them, and my bro which was supposed to look after the tanks didnt see em and when i came back only 5 babies were still alive, but they died the following day ). It was a sad experience, and i hope it will never happen again.

 

[jvanrompu]

Hi,

If you bought this female in a store are you sure it is a viejita female, I have been in unscrupulous stores that will sell you any female with different males.

Thanks

John

 

[MaXoTrAp]

yea im sure it is a female viejita, first because this is a store i trust(ive bought many fishes there before, including all of my apistos, and they always told me the truth). I also have other viejita females in my other tank, and they look exactly the same. Finally, my female is really trying hard to spawn with the male, so i really dont think the female is the problem. Do any of you know a disease that affects apistos that prevent them from spawning, without any other strange behaviour? Im really confused with this male...

 

[Neil]

MaXoTrAp,
It may be kind of rare but there are just times when nothing is going to bring 2 fish together. However, there are other things that you can try. A target might be helpful, seperating the fish and then putting them back together, etc.
You may just need to start looking for one new partner for the other.
Neil

 

[Cockatoo]

Mmm, I think that using a tank divider will help. They can see each other but can not make any contact. After a week or two, remove the divider and see how things going.

 

[MaXoTrAp]

ok, thanks for your help. Ive put the female in my other tank, this male viejita now got 4 females!!! Lucky bastard lol. Ill put her back with the lazy male next week. Meanwhile, ill buy a target fish(maybe a. agassizi, is it a good idea? i heard they are not very aggressive, so chances are he/she will not be able to harass my viejitas, but my viejitas will, then ill remove he/she when they spawn or if his/her life is in danger , i HATE using target fishes but everything else failed... ) and put it with the lazy male apisto. If it still doesnt work, ill buy a new female.

 

[MaXoTrAp]

since my apistos are unfortunately not alone in the tank, I dont think a diviser is a good idea(the other fishes need some space too). Maybe Ill try anyway, but i got another tank so ill just separate them first, as explained before. Then ill try the diviser, ive already done this before with bettas and it worked fine.