apisto macmasteri - male killed female

[patricka]

ok I failed I know now I want to learn a bit more so that this does not happen again.

I got myself 1 male and 1 female in a 30G tank with loads of plants and few woods for hiding.

the male would chase none stop the female every time he would see her.

the male has nice colors the female was gray.

- I did some reading and I was told that if the female does not want to breed, the male will chase her away. in this case having 2..3. 4 females would be better? the people who breed, how do you guys do? how can you put a male and a female together in a 10G without the male killing the female?

- the female should be yellow? I did see some of the females in the store tank were yellow and I wasn't sure if that's what I needed or just that gray female so I took the gray with no colors... except on the tail... top and bottom of the tail had a small stripe of red.

so I basically want to know how you guys keep these fish together without them killing each other... I know you need hiding places but I thought I had but apparently not if the female died.

thanks.

 

[Mike Wise]

Male macmasteri-group species have been known to control 6 foot long tanks. I have on many occasions kept breeding pairs of macmasteri in 10s. It really depends on the temperament of the fish. There is a good chance that your gray 'female' was a subdominant male. Go get one or 2 of the yellow females and see what happens.

 

[patricka]

just to add, today the male is alone in my tank with 8 black phantom tetras, 5 bottom feeders.. small ones don't remember the name, and 4 amano shrimps and everything is going well. I know they're not apistos but just saying...

when it's food time he's ok for other fish to eat just next to him..I don't know but he never goes after any of the other tank mates.

he's been alone in this tank for a bit more than 2 weeks... all good so far...

maybe in 2 weeks I'll try and get 2 yellow ones and see how that goes.