Help with trio of Agassizi

[Armandito II]

Hi guys,

This is only my second post, but thanks to this forum I got very interested in apistos. I've had bolivian rams and german rams before but never apistos.
Anyways, I set up a standard 29 gallon aquarium. I believe it's 30" long and 12" deep. I funirshed it with four caves and some fake plants to divide at least three territories. After cycling the tank with some tiger barbs I got a trio of Agassizi double red (one male and two females). I quarentine them separetly for two weeks. After that, I put them in the 29g aquarium.
The first two days everything was fine, the females got really yellow and started showing off to the male. He looked very interested in them and always swam with them with no sings of agression, but after around four days of being in the new aquarium suddenly I noticed both females behaving quite scared and with their dorsal and anal fins slightly shreded.
Now, the males is always stalking and chasing them agressively and each passing day the females' tail fins are a little worse.
What can I do? Should I remove them or will this excessive agression from the male subside, like it did with my german rams?

Thanks for the help

 

[merlin]

I am also interested in this thread. My male is behaving the same way and the only time I see the female respond to the male is when she comes out into the open for food. She colours up, he dances around then when she has eaten she bolts.

Derek

 

[aquaticclarity]

Sounds like you a need a lot more structure in the tank. If the male is actively seeking and finding the females and then causing damage that tells me the females aren't able to get out of sight easily enough. In a 29 gallon tank is you can readily count the number of plants and hardscape in the tank you don't have enough!

Also, have you seen the tiger barbs interacting with the Apistos? Tiger barbs are great fin nippers. Normally the inflict more damage on each other and other mid water swimming fish but I've seen them turn Cory cats into a mess before as well.

 

[Gwendal]

I think you need more plants and rocks or wood.
They need more hiding place.





1 saludo

 

[Brown Water]

I read somewhere that the male will horrass the female when he is ready to breed, but she isn't. Don't know how true it is, have noticed that a bit with my pair.. Few days after spawning and eating the eggs (only have spawned for me 2x in the month I've had em) the male relentlessly chases and displays to my female. After a few days he stops. Like I said, it was something I read somewhere don't know if it's true or not.

I also know from my limited exp with them, that having driftwood on eaither side of the tank was not working for me, they set up at different sides of the tank, had to rework my driftwood and plants all to one side and they seem much better/happier.

What about floating plants? I know mr wise has told me that I need floating plants in my apisto tanks. Just an idea that maybe somone hasn't thought of.

 

[Armandito II]

@ Acuaticclarity:
Oh, no after cycling the aquarium I removed the barbs. They're little devils I only keep them by themselves.
Makes sense about more structure in the tank, I'm thinking of that maybe changing the stuff around tobreak lines of sight.

@ Driftwood:
I hadn't considered floating plants. Are they easy to maintain?

I added a couple of aditional fake plants, but I'll get a couple more to see if it helps.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'll take a couple of pictures of the tank during the weekend to get some more opinions of what I can change to help with the situation.

 

[Armandito II]

I am also interested in this thread. My male is behaving the same way and the only time I see the female respond to the male is when she comes out into the open for food. She colours up, he dances around then when she has eaten she bolts.

Derek

Yeah I've seen my apistos do the same a couple of times.

 

[Brown Water]

Yeah most of em are easy/low light. Java moss, java fern, guppy grass (just started working with this plant myself), duck weed to name a few.

 

[Armandito II]

Here is an update on my tank:

During the weekend I got 5 or 6 new plants. I rearranged the old ones and added the new ones. After an hour or so I checked on my tank and to my surprise both of the females where completly yellow swimming around the male, with no signs of aggresion. To this day they have a similar behavior, but I'm noticing the male spending alot more time with one of the females. Occacionally the male chases the females a bit but not much. I'm still thinking of adding some floating plants in the near future, just to see how they react.

Here are a couple of pictures of my agassizi tank. Any sugestions about the arragement is welcomed.

 

[Gwendal]

I prefer natural things, not artificial, but is ok.







1 saludo