Channa fire and ice help!!!!

[brianhildreth]

Hi Everyone

this is my first post and im looking for some help, i took delivery of 8 really great looking fire and ice and for the first few days everything was fine and then i noticed one of them had a big wound behind the eye and was left on its own. Unfortunatlely the following day i died! then i noticed it happened again to another in the same way. The other six seem ok together at the moment but i and just wondering if this is normal for fire and ice?
They are in an eheim 400 tank which is planted quite heavy.
any info would be great..

thanks

Brian

 

[-DC-]

Fire and ice are highly agressive , its probably the result of loosing fights.

They'll continue dropping off one by one until only a solo dominate fish is left OR a bonded pair if your very lucky!

 

[brianhildreth]

Thanks dc, is there anything else I can do to reduce the fights ? There is plenty hiding places and there in a big enough tank I thought.


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[-DC-]

Not really.

space and hiding spots helps guve the loosers a chance to hide, with more space there is a better chance the loosers can survive the first attacks and be removed before getting killed but If left in the tank the dominate channa will search for them sbd eventually find and kill then. They are Very terretorial fish!

 

[brianhildreth]

Thanks for the info dc hopefully it all works out, my stewartis and Bengal blues are tame compared to these I never lost any of them. I'll try uploading some pics of the fire and ice.


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[-DC-]

Gachua and stewerti will also start to turn aggressive as they mature. I started with over a dozen Bengal blues and then one day almost over night that dropped to a pair.

All these subtropical snakeheads have very similar behaviors. Some are more aggressive then others and some mature smaller/faster, but in the end when maturity hits one (typically female) starts to become dominate, larger and more aggressive. From there fights start to get worse and worse until you end up with a pair or solo fish. They are not the type of fish who claim part of a tank and keep others away, snakeheads claim the whole tank and actively hunt down the others.