Fighting !

[scrappy]

My Sajica were breeding earlier this week and some eggs hatched, however overnight the wrigglers dissapeared and the female stopped guarding the pit ( i had a Featherfin Catfish in there which prolly wasnt a good idea as i believe he may have been the culprit for eating the fry), anyways to cut a long story short i moved the Featherfin to another tank leaving only the pair of Sajica in the tank, but the males turned on the female and seems to be getting very rough (to the extent that the female is starting to look a little stressed). Is he peeved at the fact the fry possibly got eaten by the Catfish and is blaming his female counterpart???

If so can i move the female into a community tank and will i be able to put them back together at some point or are their mutual breeding days over???

I havent ever seen this aggressive behaviour from the male before, specially towards his breeding partner...

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[black angel]

Maybe he wants to breed again but shes not ready obviously. It may help to seperate them for a couple of weeks in the same tank so they can at least see each other and then let them go together. The males are aggresive to the females if they arent ready to breed to the point where they can kill them.
Maybe you should post this again in the cichlid section for a better reply.

 

[juanveldez]

not having kept this species yet I can't say as to if the female would be a safe addition to a community tank or not. but I can say that it isn't uncommon for the male to blame the female for the loss of his progeny and to then take it out on her....

 

[Flashfire]

A similar thing happended to my toffee fish, the male and female bred but the fry disappeared and the male started to attack the female. Is the male being territorial over the area that is the fry's spawning pit? It is possible that the fry died of a disease that they did not have to immune strengh to resist but the parents did. Seperate the male and female and only put them back after the male has stopped being territorial.

 

[freddyk]

If the male is being overly aggressive I think a good idea has already been mentioned, put up a divider through which they can see each other and judge their behavior through it. Cichlid companionship relies on their mating cycles, and if this goes off it can set them against each other, but that doesn't mean it's permanent.

 

[scrappy]

Thanks for replies, as i didnt have any divider glass at the time i had to move the female last night as the male had managed to damage one of her scales over her head in his rage... shes in my community tank with various small fish at the moment and seems quite happy, even seeming to get along with my pair of rams. I went to a few shops locally but couldnt find anything to divide the tank with, anyone reccomned what i should be looking for, ive been looking for a glass or plastic divider without any luck... is it easier to get some perspex or sommat from a hardware store and cut it to size?

 

[freddyk]

I've used 'eggcrate' (white grid light diffuser) before and it worked well. You can even cut an opening in it large enough for them to stick their heads in and interact without actually being able to get through.

 

[sub.42]

scrappy,

My Sajica were exactly the same. They were always having bust ups. It seems, oddly enough, to reinforce the bond!. They would both smash the whole tank up after a failed spawning. And my plecs were the egg munchers aswell. Hence whey my ancistrous has big battle damage!

Keep them apart for a week, then reintroduce them. Keep an eye on them, and see how they go. The males are very rough with the females, and if all you have is a dislodged scale, the count yourself lucky.

sub.

 

[juanveldez]

I too use the egg crate for my dividers. its pretty much a copy of the ones made by aquamojo. very easy to make and fairly cheap and the amount of materials that most hardware stores sell it in allow you to make multiple divders allowing for a test run so to say. but I also know that once apon a time I made up a write up of how to do it in the DIY forum. I will see if I can locate it for you.


EDIT:

found the write up that I did HTH

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...9319&hl=divider