Cacatuoid trio issues

[Jordan]

Hi all, as the title suggests I’m having an “issue” with my cacatuoides trio, my male and one female seem to have paired, they share parental duties and ALWAYS swim with each other.

In all my research before i purchased the trio I read that they were harem breeders and the female would assume parental duties and chase the male away.

They spawn like clock work, once a month which surprised me as they are in a planted community with neons, otos, Siamese algae eaters(real ones) and some sterbai corys(who are going soon).

Now the issue, the paired male and female will actively look for the other female if she isn’t in “her” corner they will chase her and gang up on her until she is back in her corner by the filter intake.

Does anyone have any advice or tips? Thank you in advance.

Jordan

 

[Mike Wise]

Your tank is either too small or not set up with enough territorial boundaries, or both. You might just want to remove the odd female to another tank.

 

[Jordan]

I will remove the odd female to my 20 gallon, I would have thought a 55 would have been enough for a trio but I guess it comes down to each individual fish

 

[Jordan]

This is my tank how it is currently set up, does this seem like enough territory’s?

 

[Mike Wise]

I think that the problem with your tank set-up is that the fish can see across the entire length of the tank.

 

[audigex]

I'd agree with the above. It also appears to be a fairly "tall" 55, so you aren't getting much more of a footprint than a 40G - basically the entire top half of the tank is useless when it comes to territories, especially if there's nothing to block sightlines

 

[Norman Fenske]

That all makes sense I have 10g breeders set up in 2 of my tanks 1m and 2f once the m paired up with a f the other female wound up dead but in return both pairs the f is guarding eggs.