Time To Remove The 3 Others?

[Elisabeth83]

I believe I have a pair of blue acaras now and it seems the other 3 acaras in the tank arn't fairing too well from the male. He's chasing them pretty constantly unless he's displaying to the female and now all 3 he's been chasing/nipping have nipped fins. I'm wondering if it's time to get rid of the other 3? I don't want him nipping them to death or nipping them where they start getting secondary infections.

I'm not 100% the female likes the male though..although she spends times with him she isn't aggressive towards the other 3 in the tank and just swims around happily.

I dont want to remove the other 3 prematurely where then the female is unhappy or something.

Help!

 

[Tolak]

Try putting in a divider to give it a test run.

Tolak

 

[freddyk]

This type of aggression when no pairs have been established yet is normal, and a clear Divider is a good idea if aggression is getting out of hand. Some chasing and fin nipping is fine, but the fish shouldn't be looking shredded, and they should not be up in the top corner of the tank trying not to be seen.

In the mean time do you have lots of hiding spots?

 

[Elisabeth83]

Well I've removed the other 3 for now to an empty tank. After reading what you wrote freddyk I thought it was best to remove them before things got worse. I'm happy to say since I have removed them the "pair" have been doing a lot more stuff together. Now the female is displaying to him more, follows him very close and they have both been picking/cleaning (though more so the female) off the flat rocks I have in there. I've also seen them trying to slightly lip lock with eachother..it hasn't gotten to be full on lip locking yet. The male is getting darker in color too.

One question I've got is since removing the other 3 it seems as though the females egg spot has become swollen. Is that normal? Is she wanting to breed/spawn?

edit: forgot to add yeah I've got a lot of wood and plants in the tank so there should be plenty of hiding places.

edit agaín: Don't worry about the swollen egg spot I've now read some info that that is her "tube" and she's getting ready to lay eggs.