I just recently read about Andiccas pair of A. metae - the male snapped and killed his mate over night. I was quite surprised to read of this though, breeding can bring about some extreme behavior. I had been told that A. metae are largely peaceful and can be kept with smaller tankmates like tetras. For the record I have a 125g tank with 7 G. Red head Tapajos, 4 A. metae, and 3 Krobia XO along with a large school of columbian tetras.
I got the Krobia and the Metae in the same order from rapps in november. The metae have outgrown the Krobia ten fold. Over all their behavior has been what I expected but there have been some peculiar happenings that i now believe are Metae aggression. Of the three krobia, I had a dominant male arising. Starting to show some nice orange in his face. One day I came down to the tank and saw a scratched eye - I've dealt with eye injuries before and knew that it would heal given time and good water quality. I didn't know what happened but I chalked it up to being a fluke... maybe he got spooked and swam into some sharp driftwood... not sure. Well it began to heal nicely until I came home from a long weekend and the eye was completely gone. Empty eye socket. I felt horrible. He was still able to swim around fine and eat. I quarantined him and he recovered. The socket skinned over and he started gaining size. He did well enough that I though I'd reintroduce him to the tank. For months he did great. Then seemingly out of no where I came home after work to find him beaten badly. He had a huge patch of scales missing at the top/back of his head, it was nearly scaleless there. He was on his side struggling to right himself. I netted him out and put him back in quarantine but it was too late. I put him down. This was roughly a week ago.
I thought that maybe he had become a target because of he weakness. I figured the remaining two might be ok, being that they were healthy. I was wrong. This morning I woke up to the other male? thrashed in the same manner. Scales missing at the top/back of his head. Weak, and hiding under the filter intake. I moved him out, and moved the remaining smaller krobia out as well.
I'm almost certain this is the work of the Metae. It is possible one of the Red heads is responsible, but I doubt it. They just don't have the hardware to to this type of damage. I can see them nipping fins, etc, but not something like this. So I'm pinning it on the Metae. They are the largest fish in the tank, definitely the most pushy that I have seen - but this really surprises me. For now I'll keep the metae and the Red heads together, but if something like this happens to one of my red heads, those metae are gone. That's where I draw the line.
If you have metae mixed with other peaceful south americans... keep your eyes peeled for any aggression.
I got the Krobia and the Metae in the same order from rapps in november. The metae have outgrown the Krobia ten fold. Over all their behavior has been what I expected but there have been some peculiar happenings that i now believe are Metae aggression. Of the three krobia, I had a dominant male arising. Starting to show some nice orange in his face. One day I came down to the tank and saw a scratched eye - I've dealt with eye injuries before and knew that it would heal given time and good water quality. I didn't know what happened but I chalked it up to being a fluke... maybe he got spooked and swam into some sharp driftwood... not sure. Well it began to heal nicely until I came home from a long weekend and the eye was completely gone. Empty eye socket. I felt horrible. He was still able to swim around fine and eat. I quarantined him and he recovered. The socket skinned over and he started gaining size. He did well enough that I though I'd reintroduce him to the tank. For months he did great. Then seemingly out of no where I came home after work to find him beaten badly. He had a huge patch of scales missing at the top/back of his head, it was nearly scaleless there. He was on his side struggling to right himself. I netted him out and put him back in quarantine but it was too late. I put him down. This was roughly a week ago.
I thought that maybe he had become a target because of he weakness. I figured the remaining two might be ok, being that they were healthy. I was wrong. This morning I woke up to the other male? thrashed in the same manner. Scales missing at the top/back of his head. Weak, and hiding under the filter intake. I moved him out, and moved the remaining smaller krobia out as well.
I'm almost certain this is the work of the Metae. It is possible one of the Red heads is responsible, but I doubt it. They just don't have the hardware to to this type of damage. I can see them nipping fins, etc, but not something like this. So I'm pinning it on the Metae. They are the largest fish in the tank, definitely the most pushy that I have seen - but this really surprises me. For now I'll keep the metae and the Red heads together, but if something like this happens to one of my red heads, those metae are gone. That's where I draw the line.
If you have metae mixed with other peaceful south americans... keep your eyes peeled for any aggression.
