Severum Behavior

[myenigmaself]

Howdy all. I'm looking for a little advice. I currently have 5 Juvenile Severum (see my sig) that are 2"-2 1/2". I had them all in a 30G, but they've started to out-grow the tank so I moved the large gold to another tank (he seemed to be the biggest bully). Then I started seeing some agression towards the smaller (female) gold. After a couple days she started showing signs of fighting (and losing) so I moved her in with the other gold, as they always seemed to get along. I moved everything around in hopes of tricking the male gold into thinking he was in new territory. I'm not sure if that worked or not, but regardless he bullied her constantly, so I ended up moving her to her own 20G where she's the only mid-level fish, and also the largest fish in the tank. Her wounds are healing (slowly but surely) but she seems so lonely now. The 20G and the 30G holding the 3 green sev are right next to one another and she always stays on that end of the tank and watches the greens. They do the same to her. It's like they all miss each other, but fight like mad when they're together. I know the best solution would probably be to get a 120G and let them all swim together again, but that's not in the cards for a few months. Any ideas to aleviate the lonesome dove for the time being?

 

[CFC]

As you have said the problem is the tank sizes which are just too small to support multiple severums, the ideal solution would be to buy a much larger tank which allows the fish a minimum of 20g each, while severums are generally a non aggressive Cichlid they do still need territories to call their own. For the time being all you can do is keep them seperated and within sight of each other, lonelyness is better than being beaten and dead.

 

[digital_run]

Just a thought...but have you noticed the Sevs pairing up. They could be forming breeding partners and attacking the "odd-ball" left out.

 

[myenigmaself]

They're not quite big enough yet. I actually thought the two golds might have been pairing, but when they were left alone the male was so abusive I can't imagine that's what was happening. Might I be wrong? He didn't hurt her, just chased her and then she'd get hurt running into things. These are my first sevs so I'm still getting used to the behavior.