Your South American set up - Advice please!?

[shawe1]

I have a 100g south american tank with a footprint of 48" x 21" x 25". The current stock consists of Geophagus Altifrons (6"), Geophagus Orangehead (4.5"), Satanoperca Leucosticta (7.5"), Satanoperca Jurupari (3"), a green phantom plec (3"), C. compressiceps (3") and a few lemon tetra and corries. I am currently running a fluval 405 and fluval 406 external filters and keeping up with 40% water changes weekly.

The stock sounds quite hefty for a tank of this size but due to the size of the fish, if it wasn't for the over active corries and tetra the tank would be pretty bare.

The problem I am facing is aggression between the 2 geophagus species. This is not the first time I have had issues with geophagus aggression and with a few minor stock changes I manage to greatly reduce the aggression, but eventually I am always back to square 1 and the aggression starts again. For example I originally had 2 orangeheads and an altifrons that enjoyed each others company but eventually one of the orangeheads got very aggressive with the other two and had to be removed. This left the altifrons and single orangehead and they got along fine for a couple of months (other than the odd bit of chasing). Yesterday I witnessed a fairly brutal fight between the two and I am back to square one and it seems the smaller orangehead is now dominating the bigger altifrons.

I really dont want to give up on the geophagus species but I always end up having to remove one of my favourite fish so that I can gain some order in the tank and it is starting to get veryyyyy frustrating!!

I have been looking on youtube at various other south american set ups (including some of GT3000's vids) and it seems their fish get along much better but what I have noticed is that their tanks are more heavily stocked.......could this be the problem that my tank is under stocked with regards to the geophagus species??

 

[duanes]

I find that in my situation, I must have groups/shoals of 1 of maybe 2 species of Geophagines per tank, and each group, a half dozen or more of each species.
A bunch of different individuals or pairs of random species had not worked for me, and has always lead to aggression. Most of my tanks are in the 100-150gal range.
I have a smaller tank of Gymnogeophaus balzani, (60gal) 2 males 4 females, little or no aggression.
Another tank of 9 Guianacara and some Acacarchthys, aggression minimal.
In a 150 gal, in the past 6 G altifrons, aggression a none issue.
And in the tanks, the groups have all grown up together from juvies, and I usually don't mess around adding or subtracting new fish, unless they are none Geophagines, an example, I added xCichlasoma ornatum to the Guianacara/Acarichthys tank, without incident.
But when I removed a pair of Geophagus iporangensus from a tank, and tried to put them back after a month, all hell broke loose, they will live comfortably as an established group, but if separated a while, all bets are off.

 

[Ninjabadger]

I've had to take out one of my Jaguars and play a bit of games with the layout of the tank to get them to settle in the past.

I've tried added a bit of plastic planting (buggers dig up destroy all the real stuff) to act as a screen so that they managed a smaller territory which has worked for a bit though when the big one spawned there wasn't much I could do but remove her before she killed everything in the tank.

Giving a timeout for 24-48hrs and rearranging the tank can help. It seemed to allows the current inhabitants a chance to settle new territory and when the more boisterous fish is reintroduced they need to settle back in which seems to have cured a lot of the major squabbling for now.

 

[notho2000]

I have a 100g south american tank with a footprint of 48" x 21" x 25". The current stock consists of Geophagus Altifrons (6"), Geophagus Orangehead (4.5"), Satanoperca Leucosticta (7.5"), Satanoperca Jurupari (3"), a green phantom plec (3"), C. compressiceps (3") and a few lemon tetra and corries. I am currently running a fluval 405 and fluval 406 external filters and keeping up with 40% water changes weekly.

The stock sounds quite hefty for a tank of this size but due to the size of the fish, if it wasn't for the over active corries and tetra the tank would be pretty bare.

The problem I am facing is aggression between the 2 geophagus species. This is not the first time I have had issues with geophagus aggression and with a few minor stock changes I manage to greatly reduce the aggression, but eventually I am always back to square 1 and the aggression starts again. For example I originally had 2 orangeheads and an altifrons that enjoyed each others company but eventually one of the orangeheads got very aggressive with the other two and had to be removed. This left the altifrons and single orangehead and they got along fine for a couple of months (other than the odd bit of chasing). Yesterday I witnessed a fairly brutal fight between the two and I am back to square one and it seems the smaller orangehead is now dominating the bigger altifrons.

I really dont want to give up on the geophagus species but I always end up having to remove one of my favourite fish so that I can gain some order in the tank and it is starting to get veryyyyy frustrating!!

I have been looking on youtube at various other south american set ups (including some of GT3000's vids) and it seems their fish get along much better but what I have noticed is that their tanks are more heavily stocked.......could this be the problem that my tank is under stocked with regards to the geophagus species??

My experience with compatibility align pretty much right on with what Duane has said. I have had and presently have mixes of Geophagines and other than a few minor spats, nothing serious. If your tank is large enough, going with higher numbers of a given species seems to work. And raising fish up from young together is important for me. Is the aggression resulting in injury or damage to the aggressed one? Cichlids being cichlids, there will always be some sort of confrontation. Question often is, is it serious enough to step in? Here's a 180G SA tank (6'x2'x2') where there are no issues to speak of.

 

[shawe1]

My experience with compatibility align pretty much right on with what Duane has said. I have had and presently have mixes of Geophagines and other than a few minor spats, nothing serious. If your tank is large enough, going with higher numbers of a given species seems to work. And raising fish up from young together is important for me. Is the aggression resulting in injury or damage to the aggressed one? Cichlids being cichlids, there will always be some sort of confrontation. Question often is, is it serious enough to step in? Here's a 180G SA tank (6'x2'x2') where there are no issues to speak of.

It is literally 50/50, they actually chase each other. It reminds me of two brothers having a brawl with each other, they spend a fair amount of time tolerating each other and then have a tear up.

There is damage but only minor fin damage, not lip locking or scale damage.

I have a video but dont know how to put it on here??

Sent from my GT-I9195 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[notho2000]

It is literally 50/50, they actually chase each other. It reminds me of two brothers having a brawl with each other, they spend a fair amount of time tolerating each other and then have a tear up.

There is damage but only minor fin damage, not lip locking or scale damage.

I have a video but dont know how to put it on here??

Sent from my GT-I9195 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

My suggestion is to add another couple of each. They need distraction from one another.
As far as inserting a video:
1. Go to the video site and copy the URL for the video.
2. Check the menu bar at the top of the "quick reply" space where you're entering your new message and video. Click on the second icon from the right, paste the URL into the space and click OK.
3. The video URL will appear bracketed between two of these: "[VIDEO]"
4. When you click on "reply", the message and video will actually appear.
5. Done.

 

[David R]

I agree with notho and Duane, in a tank that size you would be better off with a good sized group of one of the smaller Geophagus species (red/orange heads, Sp. Pindare) rather than a "stamp collection" of different species.