Aggressive African Tigerfish

[Darryl Taylor]

I bought 5 tiger fish and one is a real butthole lol. I had him abt a month, the other 4 I had for two weeks. But this one I bought him a month ago with another tiger fish ,that he killed. I remember someone saying don’t just get two because of the aggressive behavior. Well I already had the two smfh. So when I got the others he went right after each. Thought it was a too small tank or maybe he just made that tank his home. so u moved them all to my big tank. Well he did the same within days in the big tank. He only 3.5. “ but only goes after the other tiger fish. I have tinfoil barbs he doesn’t do nothing to really. A baby jaguar Cichlid you and two peacock cichlid he can care less what they do. But soon as another tiger fish gets close to him, he is trying to take them out lol. Why do you think he is doing this? The guy I got them from had them all together, abt 30 of them. I have him in his own tank now because he can’t play nice with any other tigers.

 

[moe214]

C Chicxulub thebiggerthebetter sunnysjourney fishtankphil

 

[Darryl Taylor]

C Chicxulub thebiggerthebetter sunnysjourney fishtankphil

Thanks bro

 

[sunnysjourney]

A few years back I had about 5 GATFs together for a while and there was always cuts and bruises on them from fighting with each other. I think thats how they are... They always try and test others (and they are super cannibalistic).

This video talks about why all the tigerfish in a pack are always the same exact size (and health):

I know this doesn't answer exactly why they fight or why one guy fights with others... but I think that their inherent behavior is to fight and kill anything that resembles themselves. AFAIK there are people that have kept ATF communities long term but in general it doesn't work out.

 

[Darryl Taylor]

A few years back I had about 5 GATFs together for a while and there was always cuts and bruises on them from fighting with each other. I think thats how they are... They always try and test others (and they are super cannibalistic).

This video talks about why all the tigerfish in a pack are always the same exact size (and health):

I know this doesn't answer exactly why they fight or why one guy fights with others... but I think that their inherent behavior is to fight and kill anything that resembles themselves. AFAIK there are people that have kept ATF communities long term but in general it doesn't work out.

I’ll look into it thanks for the input

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Appreciate learning from you and with you, Darryl. I can't say I have seen this exact phenomenon with our ATF but everything Sunny says I agree with. It is always a gamble with the ATF and it seems no scenario is off the table over their life in communal captivity.

 

[Ash_water]

It’s always a gamble if you wanna put them together. If you really want, try Vittatus or Forskahlii (groups of five).

 

[DB junkie]

Group of 5 is gonna take one hell of a tank when they get big......

 

[Chicxulub]

I always, ways, ALWAYS advocate for keeping to only one ATF per tank due to how easily they accidentally maim each other in regular interactions, and that's ignoring the outright aggression you seem to have experienced.

Batf and to a lesser degree fatf are known to occasionally get a violent hair up their butt. Your fish is a fatf. If by some means you ended up mixing a fatf with other non-fatf atfs, then the fatf would kill them. I once had a 4" fatf that harassed a then 10" gatf so badly I had to separate them.

Long and short of it is that I think you ended up with a fatf mixed into a group of something else, and the fatf did what fatf do.

 

[Darryl Taylor]

Group of 5 is gonna take one hell of a tank when they get big......

Yea I was planning to get 800-1000 gallon tank. But the aggressive one killed two of them. I’m still planning to get a tank that big soon because I have other large fish. My wolf fish, gar, and peacock bass all over 12”