Festae domestic violence...

[David R]

Last night my 8" male festae snapped and beat the snot out of the 7" female. They've got a batch of fry about 3mm now, not sure if he was just getting protective of them again or maybe feeling randy again? I'm 50/50 about her chances of survival, I've separated them though. They had a 180x75x60cm tank to themselves, no tankmates, plenty of wood, pots and retreats. Were raised together and paired up naturally from a group of eight young,, the two most dominant ones. This was about their 5th spawn, but the first one I've managed to raise a decent quantity of fry from (which I've removed from the tank with the male now).

If she does make it is there any point in trying to reintroduce them again, or now he's done this once is he likely to do it again? I'm not interested in keeping them in a divided tank, so if they won't coexist I'll keep the male and sell the female and turn the tank into a mixed cichlid tank.

Guess it just goes to show that with cichlids there is always an unknown element of chance...

 

[Danger_Chicken]

Last fall I borrowed a friends 10" male to put with my 8" female. They spawned several times but with in a week or two they would get divorced and fight over the kids. I had the tank divided so she rarely got hurt. The fry always dissapeared. When they spawned in May I moved the divider so she only had 1/4-1/3 of the tank instead of half and things were good until about 2 weeks ago when he managed to get around the divider and nearly killed her. The noise of the murdering was what caught my attention. The male had killed my friends female after they had a successful spawn. Watching this male it seems he's trying to protect the fry from the mother. Whats funny is the fry prefer to hang with the female when the tank is divided. He had taken her down to the flesh in a couple of spots and she was on her side when I found them, but I separated them and she was beat up but alive the next day.

 

[discuskent]

thats a shame hope she makes it

 

[aclockworkorange]

I've heard about this happening with so many festae pairs. After all this I would never keep this species as a pair without a really solid divider (read: siliconed in completely or similar to that) at all times.

 

[David R]

Well she's still hanging in there, just....

Today I picked up 4 jags ~5-7" that a friend had rescued, tookthe festae out of the 210g, rearranged the tank, let the jags get settled in, then added him back in about an hour later. Within 10 minutes he was non-stop chasing the jags around. I'm wondering if he'll ever calm down and live as part of a mixed comm or if he's always going to be intolerant of any tankmates, it doesn't look promising at this stage. I measured him while he was out of the tank and he's a fraction under 10", guess I under-estimated his size. Its a hard choice as he's a great looking fish and I don't want to get rid of him, but he's completely lacking in the personality needed to make it worth keeping him as a solo specimen. I'll give the jags a week or two in the 6' to get settled in and then try him again, if he's still being an anti-social **** I'm not sure what I'll do...

 

[aclockworkorange]

Sell him? I'm sure you could make some good money off a big male festae.

 

[David R]

Maybe, although in a small country there's a fairly limited market for a nearly-foot-long fish that needs a tank to himself.

I could send him on holiday to a friends place to put him in a 180g with a bigger flowerhorn, jag, another male festae and a bunch of other larger cichlids. I'd be interested to see if a month or two of being at the lower end of the pecking order would sort him out or make him worse...

 

[AQUAMONSTER]

its very hard to add fish with any aggressive cichlid at that size. To be honest i would keep him and junk the jags. O start with a smaller festae to get him used to tankmates

 

[David R]

Or start with a smaller festae to get him used to tankmates

Thats plan-B. I'm keeping at least one of the jags, they've been kinda hard to get hold of recently here, and they're a better size for mixing with my midevil grow outs. I've got about 200 fry from the festae pairs last spawn, so I will get a couple out of that, though it could be a long road to growing them out to a size where they can mix with the jags and devils...

 

[David R]

She had deteriorated more over night and was hardly breathing, so I made the decision to put her down this morning.