Texas Cichlid Died, Now What?

[VPBassist]

On Wednesday I came home from work to discover that my female Texas cichlid had died. I had noticed heightened aggression from the male earlier in the week so I'm positive he's the culprit.

I had been planning on breeding these fish and had been raising them in a 40g breeder using a power feeding method. The surviving male is roughly 5" at this time. I have a permanent tank set up the living room that would have housed the pair.

Now that the female is gone, I don't know what to do. Any other Texas I have access to will be around 1-2" and I worry he'll kill another one. If I add a different species to the tank, I worry about tank busting aggression. I guess that I could keep the male as a solo pet but then I'm giving up the dream of breeding.

I'm really at a loss so any advice would be welcome. Thanks

 

[Rocksor]

How large is the bigger tank? You could get 6 new texas and grow them out in the 40g and put the larger one in bigger tank. Supposedly you can increase your chances of getting multiple females by only buying ones with a dark spot on the dorsal fin. Once they reach about 4-5", you could introduce them to the larger male all at the same time. I would do daily water changes of at least 25% on the smaller tank to foster faster growth.

 

[VPBassist]

How large is the bigger tank? You could get 6 new texas and grow them out in the 40g and put the larger one in bigger tank. Supposedly you can increase your chances of getting multiple females by only buying ones with a dark spot on the dorsal fin. Once they reach about 4-5", you could introduce them to the larger male all at the same time. I would do daily water changes of at least 25% on the smaller tank to foster faster growth.

Thanks. I've been doing daily 50% WC on the grow out tank and I've never seen growth like this before. Male was about 2" when I got him a month ago; I've never even seen Oscars grow 3" in a month.

Tank in the living room is 75g.

 

[Boomer1224]

never give up,hope it works out for you

 

[Covetous]

I think even the 75 will be too small for the Texas pair eventually. The female won’t have any room to get away the pair bond would have to be perfect in the 4ft footprint.

It’s always best to get a group and let them pick their partner. Sometimes you get lucky and the pair forms right away from a male and female, but usually that involves a divider.

 

[Gourami Swami]

If the male is being hyper-aggressive to the point of killing the female at 5", you probably won't have better luck in a 75 when he is 10" and chunky. 75 would be a good wet-pet tank for the male, could probably try some spotted silver dollars or maybe even a few convicts with him if you don't like the solo fish idea.
If you really want to breed hericthys in a 75 gallon, I would recommend checking out H. tamasopoensis. I am keeping one right now, basically a gold/green Carpintis that supposedly only gets to 7". Deppi may also work, they stay around 7" as well.

 

[VPBassist]

If the male is being hyper-aggressive to the point of killing the female at 5", you probably won't have better luck in a 75 when he is 10" and chunky. 75 would be a good wet-pet tank for the male, could probably try some spotted silver dollars or maybe even a few convicts with him if you don't like the solo fish idea.
If you really want to breed hericthys in a 75 gallon, I would recommend checking out H. tamasopoensis. I am keeping one right now, basically a gold/green Carpintis that supposedly only gets to 7". Deppi may also work, they stay around 7" as well.

Does H. tamasopoensis look like this? This is the male I have.

 

[duanes]

Unless you have an already mated pair, for Herichthys (and most other cichlids for that matter). It is always best to provide a male with as many females as possible and expect to have him kill most of them, and be lucky if you get a compatible pair.
The smaller the tank, the less chance of having any females survive, and a 40 is not spacious enough for even one Herichthys (no matter what species, and IMO a anything under 75 gal is too small for a fish that reaches 7" fully grown, and a tank over 100 gals would be better.
As far as getting another Herichthys species like tamapopoensus, or deppii, if the newly added cichlids survive, and they do breed, you'd be left with un-namable hybrid mutts. And in my opinion lessen the value of the more rare species, like the ones mentioned above.

 

[Gourami Swami]

Does H. tamasopoensis look like this? This is the male I have.

That looks more like a carpintis to me, though the species do look similar.
Here's a recent pic of my tamasopoensis at 5-6"

Just to be clear, I was suggesting you re-home the carpintis and get pairs of tamasopoensis or deppi for the 75, not to get a female for the carpintis.

 

[VPBassist]

That looks more like a carpintis to me, though the species do look similar.
Here's a recent pic of my tamasopoensis at 5-6"

Just to be clear, I was suggesting you re-home the carpintis and get pairs of tamasopoensis or deppi for the 75, not to get a female for the carpintis.

Thank you. I looked up the fish after your first post because I hadn't heard of it before, I noticed that in the pictures, the fish all had multiple spots or bars, as mine does. I haven't seen carpintis with multiple spots so that is why I asked for an ID on mine