aggressive apistogramma cacatuoides

[TK27]

Hello everyone,

Im having some troubles with a cacatuoides male. he is really aggressive to other fish. Right now I have 3 tanks. 2 tanks are community tanks, the other tank is for the fry I get from my cacatuoides, swordtail and endler guppy. im not an active breeder, but I like to grow up my fry. I sell them to my local fish store. This male cacatuoides was not mine at first. I got it from my sisters boyfriend. he had it in a smaller tank (too small if you ask me), he killed about 5 fish in there. 3 corydoras and 2 cacatuoides females. his tank was too full, and he wanted to get rid of that fish. My second tank was just running well at that time, and had already introduced some fish (10 cardinal tetras, 3 endler guppy(2f, 1m)). so I took the male home, he got into the tank, he seems to do fine at first. he was just hanging around the big piece of wood, now he started to chase my tetras, attacks everyone of them who is close enough. for now it seems that the tank is big enough, and has a lot of plants in it, some wood, 2 halfs of a coconut. i have seen him chase the tetras for about 20 mins straight. He is also really big, atleast compared to my other male who is older. I have never seen anything like this in a cacatuoides. My other male is really peaceful, he never attacked other fish. the tank he is in is 80L. I hope someone can help me out, because i have no idea what to do. I wanted to introduce some females to him but im waiting with that for now.

Greetings,

TK27

 

[Mike Wise]

Rogue fish? Yes, it happens, but is not common. Without seeing your tank, my guess is that this male can see across the entire length of the tank. He considers the entire tank his territory. Do a search here on how to make territorial boundaries.

 

[TK27]

thank you Mike. This weekend im going to add some more wood, plants and maybe another cave-like thing. i have been reading some stuff about this problem, I think I get the part of creating a better tank but some things are not that clear for me.

- I also read something about catching that fish before starting to change the tank. keep him in something, and then reintroduce him to the "new" tank. Should I do that aswel?
- Introducing new females. I will wait with that for some time, hoping the tank changes will help. If anyone has experience with introducing females to a fish like this, please let me know. Did it work or not?

I only just started to really learn stuff. most of my experience with fish is me being a kid with a father helping me out with everything lol

 

[TK27]

I couldnt get a good picture of that big monster, but I found a pic I sent to his previous owner, after he got into the tank, he looks better now tho, I guess you can see he is a bit stressed from moving.

 

[Martin]

Wow, very interesting.Maybe it's a locatuoides

Hope you get him calmed down.

 

[Mike Wise]

I would remove the male for a few days when you get females, move decor around and allow the females a few days to get familiar with their new tank. Only then would I add the male.

 

[TK27]

I have changed the tank a lot. I placed two pig pieces of wood in like a V-shape, making three spaces. It has three caves (adding another one later, wasnt at the store so it got sent to me). added a lot of plants. he has been there for two days now, and it seems he is attacking less. it seems he claimed the middle of the tank, but he is still kind of exploring it all. the tetras are mostly left alone, but they get insight of him sometimes, he goes for an attack most of the time. I think the tank provides enough cover, found about 20-25 endler fry today lol

about the females. I wont introduce any female until next year, its a busy month so I decided to wait a bit longer.