Controlling Bullying

[markandhisfish]

my wild male blue acara is fine with everything in my tank except my jade eyeds which he chases and picks on. i have read before that behavoiur like this is usually from the fish in the tank that there is only 1 of. this is the case with my acara. i was wondering if adding another may help but ive got 2 concerns

1 if i get another male they may well fight

2 if i get a female and they pair off it could make things even worse

any ideas/suggestions as he is a stunning fish and ideally i want to keep him

 

[minxfishy]

aside from re-arranging the decor cant think of much else. You may have a problem if you add another male unless its slightly larger and female well if they do pair up, the jade eyes probley wont stand a chance.

 

[markandhisfish]

thats what i was thinking if they paired up it would kick off bigtime. i was wondering if it could be due to the fact the acara is south american and the cutteris are central american. the tank has been re-arranged a million times and he has been in ther from day 1 so idoubt that will make any difference

 

[Truck]

could you take the offender and the bully out? and then introduce them together after re-arranging the tank? and let them sort out a hierarchy then all is well? that may not be the case but its worth a try

 

[minxfishy]

thats what i was thinking if they paired up it would kick off bigtime. i was wondering if it could be due to the fact the acara is south american and the cutteris are central american. the tank has been re-arranged a million times and he has been in ther from day 1 so idoubt that will make any difference

Yeah I know it gets to the point no matter how much you move, makes no difference. Not sure the sa/ca thing makes a difference, he's just taken a dislike to them and thats that. Who know what goes on their minds.

You could try removing him for a while, but I dont think it will make much difference, they do have a long enough memory to remember their home and those around them. It may be a case of him or them, comes down to which ones you want to keep.

I feel for ya though, after the last few days its not nice to see a fish being bullied.

 

[shroob]

Have to agree, trying to 'control' bullying is near on impossible. You can't take the fish out and have a word with it. The fish doesn't understand what it's doing, it just see's the cutteri as invaders/rivals for food, territory or even mates.

 

[markandhisfish]

i think its going to come down to him or them and im afraid its gonna have to be him that wins as he is just toooo sexy to get rid of .

i posted this on another forum and this is the answer i got he made a very interesting point


IMO your issue isn't even from miscommunication between the CAs and SAs, I think your issue is a PITA blue acara - you have to remember these fish aren't all that dissimilar from GT's and although considered as the peaceful acara, they are known to suddenly become intolerant of certain tankmates - it really just boils down to the individuals character.

Cryptoheros cutteri, although not overly similar in terms of colouration are the closest morphological match to the acara and I think therein lies your problem. I'd bet the FM's aren't really seen as a challenge, the Rottie is the boss (stronger jaws if I remember correctly), so I wouldn't expect issues there apart from the occasional show down.

But morphologically the cutteri are closest to the acara, so I'd expect it's almost conspecific aggression (as far as the fish is concerned). I'm only speculating but that's what I believe to be the issue here. I think you need to try to avoid fish with similar morphological traits to this particular acara if you wish to keep its aggression down.

 

[minxfishy]

Sounds like a good reasoning to me.

 

[markandhisfish]

well the cryptoheros cutteri have gone up for sale as i want to keep the acara as he is a stunner