Agassizi tormenting blue rams

[inexorable]

I have a 180 gal heavily planted tank with neons, ottos, 2 male and one female aggies, a pair of borrellis, a pair of dicrossus filamentosa, and a dozen blue rams. I have had the apistos for about three weeks. Anyway, I had one nice male blue ram in there for a while and pounced on a really healthy looking lot of rams two days ago. I added them and delighted in watching them stake out territories and do all kinds of dancing and posturing. Today, the pre-existing ram and a female that is ready to spawn with a rosy belly and ovipositor protruding are chasing every other ram clear out of one area when they're not doing a courtship dance. This is awesome I think to myself, just before the dominant male aggie comes crusing in and starts menacing and nipping at rams. His aggression is mostly random, he sees a ram, and goes after it til they swim away, then finds the next nearest ram and repeats. I got the feeling he took a special interest in breaking up the courting pair's little spawning party before it could ever get anywhere near full swing. The aggie and the rams are just about the same size (slightly more than one inch) The male suitor ram doesn't flee at the sight of the aggie too. They do intense posturing and nip each other, but the aggie invariably gets the ram to retreat. This occurs all over my large tank, not just in one region.
Before I added the eleven new rams, The dominant aggie took no interest in the preexisting male ram, but made the subordinate male aggie's life miserable. The whole three weeks the aggies have been here, the female has shown no interest in the males and hides a lot.
My long winded question is: Are aggies typically too agressive relative to rams to be good tank mates? Should I select more suitable apistogramma species to live with my rams from a disposition / temperment point of view? Would the dominant male agassizi behave better if I had more female aggies?
Thanks
Dave

 

[mooman]

I have limited experience with a smaller tank and found that for whatever reason male apitos just don't like the looks of those rams. I have had cacs and panduros both target rams above and beyond all other fish.

How do your borrellis do with the rams? I would also like to know if any of the smaller apistos would do better in a community setting with rams.

 

[Mike Wise]

We do have cichlids here. Regardless of their size they behave as cichlids. Most polygamous apistos, like your agassizii, will try to claim as much of the bottom of the tank as possible. Yours has probably just matured enough to start building his breeding territory & is driving all the other bottom dwellers out of 'his' territory. Orinoco Rams are less territorially aggressive than your aggies. A. borellii & most regani- & pertensis-groups species should be less territorially demanding.

 

[inexorable]

borellis and rams

My borellis are the most timid fish in my tank. They hide behind plants and defer to the dicrossi, rams, neons, and aggies. They don't get much to eat at feeding time. It is interesting that the male borelli is larger than the rams and aggies. It was mad funny yesterday tho when the male borelli got curious and "tasted" my farlowella that was chillin on drift wood. The farlowella darted away and the borelli was startled.