Krib Aggression Update

[Jayhawk]

Well, since it had been a week since I posted about my krib agression problems, I thought I'd post an update.

The male (who was 3 times larger than the probable female) had started coming out more in the daylight. He kept the female pinned in the upper right hand corner for 3 days in a row, so I decided even if they were a male/female pair, they were not a "pair" in the proper sense.

I went back to my LFS, and they accepted a swap of kribs. The LFS guy and I spent a lot of time, and although none were paired up in the tank, we definitely found a male and female of just about the same size. The male is much more colorful than my first male, but he definitely has a pointed dorsal fin as well as color all the way to the point of the fin. The female is a tad smaller, and she has a rounded dorsal fin with color that stops well away from the end (my prior alleged female had only a "roundish" fin and color that went quite close to the end of the fin - this fish was hard to tell whether it was a young, undeveloped male or an ambiguous female).


Anyway, I wanted to thank you all for your advice, and I'll see how these two do together...

Eric

 

[tjudy]

If it happens again, try isolating the male in a net up in teh top of the tank for a few weeks. That lets teh female establish her territory and get in shape. Works for my pairs when the males gets brutal. Especially with taeniatus males.

 

[Jayhawk]

That's a good idea. As of right now, both kribs are in hiding, but they've swam over to each other's cave a few times with no signs of aggression (which is a change since the first pair the male started off chasing the other one away).

 

[Jayhawk]

Well, they're definitely a pair! Bright pink belly on the female, they're doing this curve and shake dance in front of each other, and all is well in the world...at least as far they're concerned.

This is way cool. Now I see why so many people I know love kribs.