johnsmith Posted February 1, 2005 Report Share Posted February 1, 2005 Over the past couple of weeks I have finally introduced 3 firemouths into my 33g. First I added two small guys and the one with darker bars and a little more colour was being a bully towards the other one. A few days later I added a medium size fm who pretty much minds his own business, except for the odd brief chase. The problem is that one of the smaller guys has the other one scared into a corner. It looks like the tables have been turned b/c now the one with darker barring is the one who is scared. Is it likely that they'll eventually give each other their space or is that guy toast? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nandopsis Posted February 2, 2005 Report Share Posted February 2, 2005 Well it sounds like the two smaller ones that are fighting are males, and that the larger one is probably a female. If so, a 2 to 1 ratio of males to female is not going to work and they will fight untill one becomes sick or worse. My suggestion would be to take one of the suspected males out and see what happens. Try switching fish untill you get a match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsmith Posted February 2, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 2, 2005 Right now the medium fm and one of the small fms are getting along fine so if I took out the poor guy who's stuck up in the corner would it be likely that the other two would continue getting along? I'm not sure if I want to put the little guy in my African tank, I think it might be better just to take him out for good? PS - the small ones are ~ 2" and the medium one is ~ 4" - Andrea @ Chums told me the larger guy was a male. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nandopsis Posted February 3, 2005 Report Share Posted February 3, 2005 Well if andrea has seen them, she would know better than me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyasa Posted February 4, 2005 Report Share Posted February 4, 2005 Yeah, I don't think putting a lone firemouth in with Africans is a such a good idea. My buddy tried this and his firemouth got shredded. HTH. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsmith Posted February 4, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 4, 2005 Unfortunately the problem has been...solved. I guess he was really stressed because I found him dead yesterday. He didn't have any torn fins or any other signs of damage at all. Only the emotion scars of being rejected by his peers. So far the other two are getting along fine. I think the bigger fm came from an abusive environment (his fins are pretty torn) so he's on the submissive side. The little guy tries to cozy up to him once and a while but he just gets chased away. The bigger guy is even reluctanct to come out for food right now. Hopefully he'll figure out soon enought that he's twice as big as anything else in the tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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