Critter Keeper Isolation Tank

[Narwhal]

I was recently thinking of using a critter keeper (those little reptile containers, most people use for crickets) as an in-aquarium isolation system to deal with aggression. I remember seeing crayfish kept in them in pet stores so they wouldn't kill fish, and was wondering if I could use the same method to deal with high aggression in my tank or temporarily house more aggressive or more delicate fish and inverts?

 

[Drstrangelove]

Isolation / imprisonment is a method to deal with high aggression in humans. It's because humans (typically) understand why they are in isolation and can learn to self control their behavior to avoid it in the future. Most if not all fish and invertebrates lack those capabilities.

Why would you not just remove them from the tank? What's the long term plan once you've imprisoned the animals in a tiny cage.?

 

[robham777]

Some details on what you have going on might be helpful. A divider is easy to make from plastic light diffuser available at big box hardware stores.

 

[Narwhal]

Isolation / imprisonment is a method to deal with high aggression in humans. It's because humans (typically) understand why they are in isolation and can learn to self control their behavior to avoid it in the future. Most if not all fish and invertebrates lack those capabilities.

Why would you not just remove them from the tank? What's the long term plan once you've imprisoned the animals in a tiny cage.?

Time out as I have heard it called works on a different principal. By removing the aggressive fish, Hierarchies change. When returned the aggressive fish may no longer be the top fish. I was primarily hoping to use it for fry and to breed inverts, and just thought another use might be to hold aggressive or injured fish temporarily.

Some details on what you have going on might be helpful. A divider is easy to make from plastic light diffuser available at big box hardware stores.

Yeah I built one, and a cage from light diffusor, but most critter keepers have more volume and I don't have to seal every little hole with a small Mesh. The critter keeper is probably better for snails or crayfish, Its issue being flow will be lack of flow. I should really build a larger cage, maybe from a plastic tub with floats and lots of holes. for flow.

 

[Drstrangelove]

Time out as I have heard it called works on a different principal. By removing the aggressive fish, Hierarchies change. When returned the aggressive fish may no longer be the top fish.

Okay.

Just to be clear, what you are essentially saying is that if someone has an aggressive fish, all they need to do is put him in a cage (in the tank) for some amount of time, and then, when he's released back into the tank, he'll be less aggressive.

Can you post a link to those people claiming that putting a fish in a cage will lead to a change in fish hierarchies once the "aggressive" fish is let out of the cage?

 

[Narwhal]

Okay.

Just to be clear, what you are essentially saying is that if someone has an aggressive fish, all they need to do is put him in a cage (in the tank) for some amount of time, and then, when he's released back into the tank, he'll be less aggressive.

Can you post a link to those people claiming that putting a fish in a cage will lead to a change in fish hierarchies once the "aggressive" fish is let out of the cage?

I am not saying they are less aggressive, They just have to work there way back to tank boss, if the fish is an adult it probably will not work, the fish is tank boss for a reason. It only works in certain cases where the new tank boss can hold his position. Looking I can't find some article saying it works, just people asking if it is a good idea because they heard about it, which makes me interested in how the idea of giving fish time-outs got started. I have heard many experienced people say they have never found it to work, but my guess is there is some truth to it, but time outs may not be the necessary step, or the separation has to be a couple of weeks or months. Here is the only article I could find that mentions time-outs http://pets.thenest.com/handle-dominant-cichlid-4258.html

 

[hart24601]

I have known people to do something similar with tangs in a reef tank when introducing a new tang the previous one will attack it however after a few days they tend to calm down if it's not the same species of tang. I personally used a mirror so the existing tang would attack the mirror and ignore the new fish, but I know people that use dividers or clear boxes like critter keepers with holes drilled for flow. It's only for a few days and seems to work quite well. You can search reef forums for more, I thought it would also be common in FW world but I guess not.

 

[Narwhal]

I have known people to do something similar with tangs in a reef tank when introducing a new tang the previous one will attack it however after a few days they tend to calm down if it's not the same species of tang. I personally used a mirror so the existing tang would attack the mirror and ignore the new fish, but I know people that use dividers or clear boxes like critter keepers with holes drilled for flow. It's only for a few days and seems to work quite well. You can search reef forums for more, I thought it would also be common in FW world but I guess not.

The mirror is an interesting idea. Part of my interest is using it to keep some plants and breed some inverts, It looks junky, but it would really only be temporary, I know I have seen containers used in that capacity in SW tanks.

 

[Steve_C]

"Time outs" is a pretty common thing in the world of cichlid keeping which is what I am mostly into. Go to places such as cichlid-forum and you'll find a ton of people that do it. For anyone that doesn't keep cichlids then they probably have not really heard of people doing it because it seems to be mostly a cichlid thing.

There have been some people that had success with it so there is some truth to the idea. With that said I have tried it different times over the years myself and my personal experience with it is that I have never had it help.

 

[MrsE88]

I didn't use a crittercage, but a divider for my green terrors. My female was 3x the size of my male when I first got him. I had to use a divider at one point because she was really doing some damage. It gave him time to catch up I'm size. Now that they are the same size he is the tank boss. So in my case the divider was all that was needed for a short time to fix the issue.
I personally would rather start another tank for breeding/inverts then have an unsightly cage in the main tank. But if you have no other option, I'm sure you could make it work short term.