Dither fish are getting SLAUGHTERED!

[Nilsafeller]

Give her time and shell come around... if you feed just drop food in and leave the room but as suggested try spending time near the tank when ur on your phone or reading a book or whatever it is you may do in down time.. let her get used to seeing you... tank is def too small for other cichlids.. if the tank was bigger and had more hides the convicts would probably work

 

[duanes]

1" barbs with a motaguense are not dithers, they are simply feeders, especially in such small tank.
Most predatory cichlids do not break off chase until quite a bit further than the 4 ft mark, there is no possible escape in tanks 4 ft x 4 ft x 4 ft or less
And in most cases, dithers only work with cichlids that are "not" primarily piscivores, or predatores.
Dithers could work in a large enough tank with genera like Vieja, Chuco, Thorichthys and other omnivores that are inept at predation.
But none of the Parachromis, and other similar predatory genera (such as Nandopsis, or Chiapaheros), are the type species to think dithers will ever escape being eaten.

 

[duanes]

To illustrate my point.
I cycled the 180 gallon tank I have now with about 25 one to two inch mosquitos fish I collected in Lake Gatun.

The cycling took about 6 weeks, so these live bearers became fairly familiar with the tank.

I then added about half dozen wild caught Andinoacara . These are omnivores, not really predatory compared to any Parachromis.
With about week, there was not a mosquitofish to be found,(I admit tho, I was not surprised ).
I then added some wild caught shrimp, almost the size of the young Andinoacara, some larger.

Took about two weeks (maybe a little longer for them to disappear.

Note the size of the shrimp on the substrate between the left end, and middle point compared to the cichlids, and it was easily eaten.

 

[RustyGrizz]

1" barbs with a motaguense are not dithers, they are simply feeders, especially in such small tank.
Most predatory cichlids do not break off chase until quite a bit further than the 4 ft mark, there is no possible escape in tanks 4 ft x 4 ft x 4 ft or less
And in most cases, dithers only work with cichlids that are "not" primarily piscivores, or predatores.
Dithers could work in a large enough tank with genera like Vieja, Chuco, Thorichthys and other omnivores that are inept at predation.
But none of the Parachromis, and other similar predatory genera (such as Nandopsis, or Chiapaheros), are the type species to think dithers will ever escape being eaten.

This is awesome info thanks so much for informing me. I've only been at this for a few years and just started getting into cichlids this year so it's all been a learning curve especially with these really aggressive types.

 

[ctateo]

6 years with a jaguar, and i gave it away a few months ago, as he suddenly wouldn't keep from beating on my other fish. Im a 1 tank guy, and chose not to have a single fish setup. the last straw was when the jag ripped most of the back half of one of my convicts apart.

 

[RustyGrizz]

Ok so took the advice and got rid of the blue and added black to the white to darken up the substrate, moved the log to the center and also added a bunch of floating plants some fake and some live. So far she has already been better! Likes to swim through the plants and definitely out more and not as skittish. Thanks everyone for the tips seems like it has all helped out!

 

[rich the fishkeeper]

if you dont like the plants, u can just dim down the lights.