Considering buying a dovii from fishstore

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JESTERX626

JESTERX626

Plecostomus
MFK Member
Jul 24, 2005
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I always hear glorified stories of dovii's, but i'd like to hear true honest answers from dovii owners. I might purchase one from a fishstore, and I assume they're farm/captive-bred, and not as aggressive as their wild counterparts.

1. How active is your dovii? I'm talking about, is he more stationary floating in one area or is he steadily moving/active?

2. How much/often does your dovii exhibit his aggression towards you? Excluding tankmates.

3. Do they hide alot?

4. How do you sex 3-4" dovii's? Is this possible? What signs/colors/patterns do you look for?
 
I think doviis are aggressive no matter what.

I don't have one to tell you experience from, but I am almost positive they are always pretty aggressive.
 
these things are very aggresive you are probably better to keep one in a species only tank. or if you want to breed buy a group of 4 and try to grow them up but aggresion will depend on the size of the tank for the group. have plenty of hiding spots for all the dovii as they mature i could only sex them at about 6 to 9 inches the males have more intense colour to the fins usually more blueish darker spots and get alot bigger than the females they can reach 30inches or more in length so eventually a large tank will be in order. in their native country they are a prized sport fish and food source.

again i must stress one of the most aggressive greedy and bullying cichlids available will kill anything you might put in the tank

beware of the teeth.
 
The stories are true when they reach about 9 in in length.My wife is pissed off at me for moving them up into the bedroom (dovii pair) they bang,boom,bomb and sometimes even get us wet from 8ft away at night.I love it the male never stops protecting her,but he is one smart fish he nows who i am and is not about to turn on the hand that feeds him (yet)as for everyone else lets just say i went through many glass tops! i use eggcrate now.def get one or pair if you can house them its worth it.
 
I've never kept dovii - except for some small ones that got eaten - My experience is that (From personal exp, and observing them at fish stores) at smaller sizes they are pretty shy, and of a typical cichlid attitude, but nothing crazy - but I have no experience with larger ones. This might be just me, but these baby dovii's were among the least hardy of cichlids I've kept - they seemed pretty fragile. (1 to 3 inch range) when compared to jags, etc... They were eaten by some Anabas I had a long time ago.
 
I have kept many different types of cichlids and so far the dovii is my favorite. I have had the female for a little over a year and she is a bit over 5 inches. I just added to males to hopefully get a pair and I have plans for bigger tank for them already. My female is very out going and would take krill from my hand until I added the males to the tank. now she hides allot even though she is around 2 inches bigger than the males.
 
My Dovii is around 4.5" and it's fairly aggressive. My big problem with him is that he always hides when I'm near the tank unless he's extremely hungry. I'm hoping he'll stay out more as he gets older.
 
I've seen a 12" male dovii that was extremely skittish, but as soon as some larger fish were added to the 240gal that sat right beside his 125, he became much more outgoing.
 
What tankmates excluding other cichlids have you guys had success cohabiting with a dovii? I was thinking of a wolffish H. Malabaricus and L25 scarlet pleco, how do you think the wolf and dovii will get along?
 
I haven't been able to keep my dovii with anything. I've never tried a wolf fish before, so I can't help you there. My dovii hides in its cave when I approach the tank, but it comes out soon and bites the tank when I put my finger on the glass.
 
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