Agression apistogramma Agassizii

[chris1805]

Hey guys i hope you can help me out.

I got a pair of apistogramma agassizii, later on i bought an extra female so they would be a nice trio. I rescaped the tank while the new female was on acclimatization. It went fine for the first week, a few show offs occured between the females and the old female didn't really like the new one, ofcourse this was all expected to happen but the strange thing to me is, since yesterday my male agassizii is chasing away the new female as well. Any thought on why my male tries to chase away the new female? there are no eggs or fry in the tank. I already bought some new plants to try to break the line of sights but plants need to grow.

thanks in advantage,

Chris

 

[chris1805]

I forgot to mention, the tank contains 3 coconut shells, and a pile of leave litter, but the new female for someone reason does not hide in it, she just does not go away and keeps going back and gets beaten...

 

[Mike Wise]

Were the original pair put back into the re-scaped tank before you added the new female? How large is the tank? How are territorial boundaries set up? All of these have a bearing on the behavior of the fish.

 

[chris1805]

original pair was in there during the rescape and set the new female free at the moment i was done. This was the best way i could do and the store told me it would be fine. I get that the females may not like eachother, but the male is actually the worse, but agassizii mates with more females at the same time, so why would he chase her all the time and not the other female?
Coconut caves are divided all over the tank, 1 in the middle 1 left, 1 right. Also good a big piece of horn wood which they can swim through, i have put a few leaves in there to make it less open. Made a little cave from 2 stones which they can hide in ass well. Behind the other piece of drift wood i put lots of leaves to hide in. The horn would is also covered with stones around it so you get little cave idea's ass well.
The size of the tank is 60x40x60cm. I got a echinodoris in the middle which will grow to about 40-60cm high but it's not that big yet, there was no bigger one available sadly.

 

[Mike Wise]

My guess is that you don't have enough 'structure' in the tank and the aggies can see each other much of the time. Without boundaries that block line-of-sight, there are no territories. The male will accept both females only if they are ready to breed.

 

[chris1805]

hmm I see, i will try to create more boundaries that block the line of sight