What Would You Do?

[Wills]

Right I've just had a fight with my HRP and finally managed to get him into solitary. He is there because he for the past week and a half has not stopped chasing my female Nic, not sure why but it is only her that he bothers. He and the Nic are about the same size and are the smallest fish in the tank by at least half an inch to an inch. But my nic is growing at a hell of a rate and will overtake him in size in the next month or so.

So the questions, do I -

one, rehome him and try to fill the gap

two, keep him in my 10g tank for a few months while the nic grows and then re introduce him to the tank?

I dont really want to get rid of him, he was my first fish since I started my tank up again and Im pretty attached to him even if he is a douche at times. Im reasonably convinced that he will calm down when she is bigger than him as he leaves my A.Diadema alone all the time and he gets pushed around by the plecs. But Im just pretty torn as to whether or not to rehome him or carry on with the plan. Additionally I do have an ad up in the classifieds, and if the right home came up I would be okay with that but Im just dont want him to go to the LFS and then get sold onto someone who does not know what they are doing.

hmm
wills

 

[star4]

Dont know if this is any help, but I have a similar situation with a male convict and female nic, however my nic is larger than the convict and she keeps him in order, so much so now they seem to be displaying to each other??? Personally I would keep him till the nic grows and try him again, then if it doesnt work re-home one of them.

 

[england]

Ok what i would do, have done in the past and it worked...

Take out both fish, totally rea-range tank wilst fish are in a bucket, then bag them both individually,and float them together for 30 mins...then release the non agressor first,leave about one hour<bag open floating> then release the second, you will have issues for a couple of days,then see how it goes,just how bad is all the chasing?

 

[Wills]

The fighting actually coincides with when I redid the tank with new rocks and wood etc. Her fins are awful, tail is nipped and so is dorsal fin. But one of her pectoral fins is so so bad, during the water change on saturday she hid in a coconut and he just dragged her out by the fin but it wasnt that bad at the time so this must have been quite recent. When I saw how bad the fin was I really was just disgusted with him nearly bagged him there and then. Ive been treating with melafix for a few days today is day 3 but I think ill be treating the tank for a an other week after this one.

Ive tried dithers twice to calm the two of them down but then my acara keeps eating them >.< I guess this is an other problem in a way, the only dithers I can think of that you can find easy at a good size are silver dollars and if I did that the tank would be a silver dollar tank with a few cichlids so I guess thats a bit of an other mark against him. If anyone goes it will be him, I'll see how he does on his own for now.

 

[england]

In that case i would leave him out the tank for good, thats the only problem with cichlids,they choose who they want to share the tank with,not you

Thats one of the reasons i have only the chocolate cichlid now in my five foot, with lots of dithers

 

[Wills]

Yeah I think you might be right Nelly, its only been a few hours since he went into solitary and the tank has totally changed. Going to be a shame to see him go but its just one of those things with fish keeping I guess Just hope I can find something worthwhile to "replace" him.

 

[GShorty1981]

I think the HRP wants to breed with the Nic, Convicts and Nics cross breed readily.

 

[fishnovice]

Yeah I think you might be right Nelly, its only been a few hours since he went into solitary and the tank has totally changed. Going to be a shame to see him go but its just one of those things with fish keeping I guess Just hope I can find something worthwhile to "replace" him.

Keep him in isolation for a while till nic is bigger and can defend herself, then reintroduce him. It may work. I had a young jewel who was constantly bullied by his larger sibling and a female con. Again, everyone picked on him to bully.Took him out for a month, then put him back in cichlid tank. He still gets chased sometimes but nowhere near as bad as before -just chasing, no nipping. Situation sorted.

Is this the HRP yu were breeding from and had hundreds of fry? If he is, try to keep him. I almost got some fry off you but we couldn't sort out the logistics of getting them safely to London. What happened to the female HRP?

 

[Wills]

Yeah its the same HRP, the female got dropsy about 2 months ago and didnt make it. I think it was down to him pestering her too much and stressing her out real shame

But I learnt the lesson never to try and breed fish without multiple tanks to swap females and males around in the stress really is too much.

Still undecided what to do with him. Going to LFS on saturday for plants going to redo main tank as the wood I have at the moment is quite spindly and looking at the tank there isnt really that much place to hide so going to try that and move stuff around see if that helps in general should work out though.

 

[fishnovice]

Very sorry to hear you lost the female. Sounds like your male is exceptionally aggressive for a Honduran -my male con is an angel compared to him, chases other fish playfully but never harms them.
Good luck with changing the tank around. Fingers crossed for you!