Agressive behavior

[ValorG]

one of my newly purchased heckels is being really agressive. he is with 3 other discus and attacks them all, he just started doing this today. I bought him a week a go. what factors could contribute to this behavior?

[ValorG]

actually let me add something, he attacks the other ones sometimes but he mainly chases the 3.5 inch one.... iono y

[Tad]

ValorG,
IMO typical cichlid behavoir....One always has to be the dominate one in an Aquarium. Sounds like a change in the pecking order ;D

regards,
Tad

[LEM504]

Aggressive behavior.

I am beginning to wonder if I have re-discovered the wheel! Would like to know if anyone has had similar experiences.

Over the past couple of years, I have collected a small assortment of Discus. ( In other words - I want everything I see!) Life is good, when the pecking order gets established. Then juvenile fish are added to the community and everything goes upside down.

The problem always seems to be a young male, when there is also a female reaching sexual maturity. The fighting starts, and usually at least one other fish is harassed to the point of death, if you don’t intervene.

Two of my recent experiences. My Son and I split an order of Six Red Tomatoes about half grown. We each came up with two males and one female. ( wild guess, based on behavior) We both set them up in a tank, containing only the Tomatoes. We both wound up with one male, that was the terror of the tank.

My solution was to isolate the problem child, in one end of a divided 50 gallon tank.
After a couple of weeks, it became very withdrawn, quit eating, and showed serious signs of stress. To be bluntly honest, I didn’t care if it died! My conscience got to bothering me, so I put the brother and sister, into his divided cell. After a week or so, he came out of his shell, and re-joined the group, and the aggression stopped.

The second case, still has me scratching my head! I picked up two male Snake Skins, at the local fish store. One nearly full grown, and one half grown. They both went into a community tank. The older Male paired with an older female Blue Turk, and they were moved into another tank.

The younger Snake Skin, became the tank wimp. He retreated to a corner, and went into stress. None of the other Discus seemed to pick on him. I tired several things, to save him and nothing was working.

Then came the turn-around. A young female in the tank, decided it was time to spawn.
She made an attempt to spawn, but didn’t produce any eggs. The young Snake Skin decided to pair with her, and over night, turned into the terror of the tank. This went on for three weeks, and he would got to the other end of the tank to attach another fish.
She spawned about a week later, by herself. Another week, and the pair spawned.
I did get a few fertile eggs, but he spent more time fighting with other fish, than spawning. His attacks on the other fish continued.

In a bare 50 gallon tank, I had a very large pair of Blue Diamonds, that had spawned many times, but never produced fry. They were on vacation and hadn’t spawned for a couple of months. I had two motives. Number one, maybe the young female would get the Blue Diamonds interested in spawning. Number two, maybe the Large Blue Diamond Male, would put the problem male in it’s place.

The young Female and the problem Male Snake Skin, went into the 50 gallon, with the big pair of Blue Diamonds.

All of the problems disappeared! There was no aggression, fighting, or stress!
At this point, I have no idea who will spawn with who, but they are just one big happy family!

In Africa, a large population of young ( baby ) Elephants were transplanted from one area to another. There were no adult Elephants in the new area, and when the young males reached sexual maturity, most turned into aggressive nightmares. It was decided that Large Adult Males were needed, to develop a social structure, and control the Rogue Juveniles. Large Males were transplanted to the area with the Rogue Juveniles, and the problems went away.

I’m wondering if we don’t have the same situation? Anyone else experienced this?

Larry

[Carol_Roberts]

Hi Larry:
Yes, I've seen a big adult (either sex) stop the juveniles from fighting. They also feel safer with a big fish in the tank.

If you keep 6 or more of one spawn together you will see less fighting. When you add fish from different sources, of different ages there is lots more fighting over pecking order. 5 brothers and sisters in a 55 (pared from 20) hardly fight at all. Add a couple of strangers and watch out!

[M0oN]

That type of behavior is abundantly common in harem breeders, my apistogramma panduro harem in a tank I have consists of 2 males and 4 females, all breeding, the males take their own territories on opposite sides of the tanks, so the females are all somewhat cramped together, they'll constantly flare at one another and the male will intervene before it comes to anything...

It's my opinion that with any cichlids you should keep 6 or more if you're going to be keeping more then 1, otherwise the aggression doesn't get spread out enough and problems like this one arise...

[LEM504]

I'm in big trouble! The wife laid down the law.
I can't have any more tanks in the house-

Larry :(

[ValorG]

lol that sucks man, but ive always been able to persuade my parents to let me get more stuff by either arranging furniture around to fit the tank or by saying i will pay for part of the electricity bill. just tink and maybe u can figure out something so that ur wife will let u get another.

[M0oN]

Every time me and my ol' lady argue about somthing like that I either throw in some cute little fish like a molly or guppy and buy her a ring or set of earrings equally expensive to the tank...usually takes her mind off it long enough for me to establish the fish in the tank...then you've got the excuse not to take it down mwa ha ha ;D

[LEM504]

Have used all of the above. They work up to a point.
The two big tanks ( I don't count the little ones ), in the living room, were cheap. The floor space, was bartered.
She now has an SUV!
Had the fireplace hearth in mind for a big one.
Looks like I hit the limit! Oh well -
I don't know why she is so un-reasonable!
She knew I was crazy when she married me!

Larry

[Carol_Roberts]

Hmmm, sounds like it might be time to build a fish room, Larry ;)

[Nightowl]

Larry, I've often referred to an elephant herd when describing discus to someone who has just said to me:" so what's the big deal about discus?" The best is when someone got out of discus to start a reef tank because the discus don't do anything so I ask them " so what do you guys do when a pollup opens, throw a party?" :)...they laugh(usually)
Anyway, its hard to respond to everythineg you described , but there is a balance that affects the quality of our fish, definitely. Its good that you moved everyone around so they are comfortable. I know with smaller fish in large groups, there are alway a few weaklings, and if you separate them, it seems a few others get bullied into weakness.
I had a group of five discus in a tank , 4-5.5 " in size, and 5 months ago added another 4.5" fish to the group, a female. Within a few weeks, a Brilliant Turq. went off its feed...just seemed to not want to eat very much. There were no signs of any real problem in the tank, and I had nowhere to go with this fish, so he remained.
About 4 weeks ago a pair was fighting in a 20 gal, the smaller fish was beat up, and I had about 5 min. to solve the problem b4 work. So I plopped the bigger bully fish in with the others, now making 7 fish in this one tank(a 40g breeder). Within a week or so, the weak guy started eating, is putting weight on again, and seems like he's going to thrive again!! All that without any meds.... and the bully from the pair is a calm as can be...no aggression at all(no spawning behavior either).
Its this type of behavior that makes these beautiful creatures so interesting, imo. J.T.

[Wahter]

Every time me and my ol' lady argue about somthing like that I either throw in some cute little fish like a molly or guppy and buy her a ring or set of earrings equally expensive to the tank...usually takes her mind off it long enough for me to establish the fish in the tank...then you've got the excuse not to take it down mwa ha ha ;D


One of my friends... his girlfriend keeps wanting him to add zebra pl*cos to his tanks! At least your mollies and guppies are more affordable! :)

[M0oN]

Every time me and my ol' lady argue about somthing like that I either throw in some cute little fish like a molly or guppy and buy her a ring or set of earrings equally expensive to the tank...usually takes her mind off it long enough for me to establish the fish in the tank...then you've got the excuse not to take it down mwa ha ha ;D


One of my friends... his girlfriend keeps wanting him to add zebra pl*cos to his tanks! At least your mollies and guppies are more affordable! :)


I only wish my ol' lady would advocate me putting rare and expensive specimins in the tank for her own personal satisfaction...she seems to be obsessed with the bottom of the barrel, though...mickey mouse platy's...could there be ANYTHING more unnatural than this fish?