Decreased aggression in captive bred fish.

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I find myself wondering, if possible, a person could breed a dovii or Asian red tail cat to be the most beautiful strain but nowhere near as aggressive would there be such a desire for them.
Well, that's kinda the thing. I think if one was going to try this experiment one should start with a fish that looks better as a juvie than it does as an adult. When we breed other animals with the intention of making them more friendly and less dangerous, they tend to start looking young. The biggest meanest dovii looks the prettiest, so. . .
 
Well, that's kinda the thing. I think if one was going to try this experiment one should start with a fish that looks better as a juvie than it does as an adult. When we breed other animals with the intention of making them more friendly and less dangerous, they tend to start looking young. The biggest meanest dovii looks the prettiest, so. . .
Exactly, I actually do like the look of a full grown male dovii, females eh. But how many people really want a dovii because of the way they look? I'm sure a lot just want them for bragging rights, "I've got one of the meanest fish around", kind of thing.
 
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Exactly, I actually do like the look of a full grown male dovii, females eh. But how many people really want a dovii because of the way they look? I'm sure a lot just want them for bragging rights, "I've got one of the meanest fish around", kind of thing.

Most of the people I know that actually own Dovii love them for their size color and personality. Not to really brag about owning a really aggressive fish. It just so happens that being mean af comes with the package lol
 
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Where did you get trimacs being the closest relative of salvini from?
If you're going off the old look based thing, here is an adult male salvini courtesy of Dan at COTA:

View attachment 1497379
Some ithyologists propose grouping Salvini and Trimac in the same genus.
 
the Oscar’s I had were only aggressive when breeding
The male was the only aggressive one and would rip my hand up if I tried to clean the tank when there were eggs. I am doubtful that a wild fish would do that. The flight or fight response of an aquarium fish is probably messed up since they really only have the option to fight.
 
Most of the people I know that actually own Dovii love them for their size color and personality. Not to really brag about owning a really aggressive fish. It just so happens that being mean af comes with the package lol
Size is often mixed up with aggressiveness. Dovii are just huge, but not aggressive. Dovii juvies get along well until they are sexually mature. Adult Dovii are surprisingly gentle to female even off breeding episodes. I've seen a 2 ft male Dovii coexist peacefully with a female a third of its size in a big tank while glass banging onlookers. Real aggressive cichlid are already mean when they are juvies, and adult males kill wives. Some Mbuna, Victorian and Convict juvies are staking out small territories and attack one another at tiny size. Their territories expand as they grow in size and eventually claim the whole tank.
 
Some convict species are disproportionally aggressive for their size. When my Crytoheros Panamensis were juvies, they constantly attacked each other.


They get meaner after they paired up, challenging fish much bigger than they were.


 
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Some convict species are disproportionally aggressive for their size. When my Crytoheros Panamensis were juvies, they constantly attacked each other.


They get meaner after they paired up, challenging fish much bigger than they were.




Imo that’s due to the fact that Convict mature faster as they attain a smaller size than most other fish. A 4 inch Convict is essentially a sub adult/fully grown compared to say, a 4 inch Jaguar cichlid, which is still very much a juvenile. I could be wrong but that’s just what I think
 
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Experiences seem to vary, but there was this study: Aquarium fishes are more aggressive in reduced environments, new study finds

In the early 1970s a friend of mine had an oscar he tried growing out with a convict and a (larger) jack dempsey-- not betting my life on my memory of his tank size, but it was a 55, I believe, possibly larger but 55 sticks in my head. The oscar killed them both and anything else he tried to keep with it.

When I was keeping/breeding African cichlids, I sometimes kept an A. rivulatus green terror with them to keep order; even smaller GTs were not intimidated and none of my haps, peacocks, or even mbuna messed with them. First time I did this was with a 2.5-3 inch green terror and I forget which mbuna species immediately went and flared at him. The GT did a right back at you display and that was that. I had some wild A. rivulatus at one point, they wanted to fight everything all the time. I tried putting them in different tanks but even at three inches they were too aggressive for my African cichlds.

Here's what Wayne Leibel had to say about the early, wild A. rivulatus in the hobby. Don't get confused, the quotes below are about rivulatus, not stalsbergi-- stalsbergi is from Peru, not Ecuador:

The green terror made a huge splash in the American hobby when it arrived here in the 1970s from Ecuador. The first of these specimens were typically huge males (some as long as 10 or 12 inches with iridescent green body color. The first ones to appear (from Ecuador, so he's talking about rivulatus) had a white marginal edge to their caudal and dorsal fins.

With subsequent importations, adults with bright orange/red marginal fin edging-- the more beautiful of the two morphs-- began appearing. The color of the fin edging varied from bright orange-red to lighter orange-gold.

...after mentioning the rarity and high price of these orange/red rivulatus, he says:
These fish got the name "terror" for good reason, though. They were far too aggressive to successfully pair and spawn even in a large tank; the males trashed any and all females paired with them, and the partial divider method did not work for them as it can for other large aggressive neotropical cichlids. Finally young specimens were imported, and these proved to be both affordable and amenable to captive spawning.
https://www.tfhdigital.com/tfh/201005/?pg=35#pg35
 
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