Agassizi males killed by females

[dna2]

Hi everyone, new here. I’m having an hard time with agassizi females which keep killing males.

I’ve first introduced a male and a female, then a month later, 2 more females. Everything was good for another month. Then a start noticing a single female was keeping the male away but I didn’t take any action as the tank as plenty of hiding. Then one morning I found the male had jumped out of the tank.

Few days later, I bought another male.
The three females immedialty start beating him, but after a couple of days, the male find his spot and start interacting with the less agressive ones. This morning I found the male dead with some sign of beating on his body.

I would like to try again, but I’ve no idea on how to prevent this from happening again.

Any suggestion is highly appreciated!

here is my tank:

Water parameters:
KH 4 GH 8 PH 6.5
NO3 5 PO4 0.5
Conducibility 400mS

 

[MapleNeil]

I don't know what's going on with your fish, but you have a beautiful tank!

 

[MacZ]

Was the sexing of the fish 100% correct?

The tank, albeit looking good, is not suitable to keep Apistogramma in. Aquascapes are in my opinion nice little (or big) aquatic gardens, but nothing to keep more demanding species in. They are often too bright, too densely planted (yes, that's possible) and too clean.
Especially for Apistogramma the interesting areas to set up a territory are small in this tank. Little real estate. The tank doesn't look very big either generally, so the number of Apistogramma was too big. A pair may eventually have worked. So in a tank that's not suitable, and basically crowded, I can surely expect a lot of innerspecies stress and aggression and that may have lead to the male getting the short end of the stick.

 

[dna2]

Was the sexing of the fish 100% correct?

The tank, albeit looking good, is not suitable to keep Apistogramma in. Aquascapes are in my opinion nice little (or big) aquatic gardens, but nothing to keep more demanding species in. They are often too bright, too densely planted (yes, that's possible) and too clean.
Especially for Apistogramma the interesting areas to set up a territory are small in this tank. Little real estate. The tank doesn't look very big either generally, so the number of Apistogramma was too big. A pair may eventually have worked. So in a tank that's not suitable, and basically crowded, I can surely expect a lot of innerspecies stress and aggression and that may have lead to the male getting the short end of the stick.

Hi, thanks for your (informative) reply.
About sexting, to me yes it was correct, male are really bigger and different from females.

About the aquascaping, light are surely bright but I keep only 8 hours and fishes doesn’t seems to bother much. Woods have lot of holes and they seems to love the repair they offer (is not obvious from the front picture but there’s space behind each one).

I agree anyway that maybe I should have opted for a pair but I’ve increased females to lower the stress on the first one. I’ll try to move some females to another tank and try to find a pair that match.

Thanks!

 

[yukondog]

he male find his spot and start interacting with the less aggressive ones.

Your tank is nice, but I would open the center up a bit and leave just one male and one female the less aggressive one and try that. I the male larger than the female? Good luck

 

[Mike Wise]

Will you tell us the dimensions of the tank's bottom, please? I always recommend that beginners provide each apisto have a territory about 1ft/30cm in diameter, with visually delineated boundaries. Also, do you hope to breed your agassizii? If so, I suggest that you exchange your neons for a less predatory dither fish.

 

[dna2]

Will you tell us the dimensions of the tank's bottom, please? I always recommend that beginners provide each apisto have a territory about 1ft/30cm in diameter, with visually delineated boundaries. Also, do you hope to breed your agassizii? If so, I suggest that you exchange your neons for a less predatory dither fish.

Hi Mike,

Tank is 60x45x45 (32 gal). About neon tetras I already moved them to another of my tanks. I was thinking to move in this one some Danio margaritatus , but I had no time to research if they are fry friendly.

Thanks for any suggestion!

 

[dna2]

Your tank is nice, but I would open the center up a bit and leave just one male and one female the less aggressive one and try that. I the male larger than the female? Good luck

Male was larger than the female with bigger fins and different tail (rounder).

About the aquascaping, I did it with the purpose of creating a nice environment for fishes but plants grew too much and I wasn’t always on time with trimming. I’ll try to open the center as you suggested and leave only a pair.

 

[Mike Wise]

Male was larger than the female with bigger fins and different tail (rounder).

That seems odd to me. Aggie males have spade/lance-shape caudals, usually with darker submarginal band or bands. Females typically exhibit round caudals with no or very weak markings.

 

[dna2]

That seems odd to me. Aggie males have spade/lance-shape caudals, usually with darker submarginal band or bands. Females typically exhibit round caudals with no or very weak markings.

Hi Mike, you surely described better than I'll ever do I'm confident sexting was right besides my incompetence in describing it, as the males were really bigger.
Anyway as soon as I'm back home, I'm going to post some photos (surely of the females, about dead males I've to check if I have it).
Thanks a lot for helping me out!

EDIT: If you look at the tank picture above, you can see the (red) tail of the first male

 

[dna2]

These are two females, fire red and double red. About the latter, I have some doubts is a double red but I’ll look forward to your opinions.

 

[dna2]

And this was the (double red) male. Unfortunately I’ve no photo of the second male (he was a fire red)

 

[dna2]

That seems odd to me. Aggie males have spade/lance-shape caudals, usually with darker submarginal band or bands. Females typically exhibit round caudals with no or very weak markings.

Hi Mike, can u please advise on sexting? I see the female from second photo hiding (or making house, I don’t know the term) in a small hole with the first female. Is it possible that aggie from photo 2 is a male?

 

[Mike Wise]

Unless it is very young it looks like a female to me. Note how blunt the back part of the dorsal fin appears; very typical for a female.