GT question

[tothna]

So I just got another GT which is male, (other one female) and the male keeps following around the female with his gills all flared out, he also has ich, so is this a courtship thing or could it have something to do with the ich?

 

[Ornatapinnis]

I am asuming that GT means Green Terror (am I right?) How large are these fish? What is the criteria that you are determining male & female? Flairing gills is normally an agressive behavior twords the other fish. Does not sound like typical "courtship" behavior. THis behavior most likely (if not definetly) has nothing to do with ich.

Joel

 

[tothna]

Yeah, green terrors the male is about 3" and the female is about 3.5" but has a lot more girth because the male came from a friends tank that didnt take care of the fish at all. The male has a noticable hump on his head and the female had laid eggs before, so I know they are male and female. It just seems strange that a smaller fish would come into a tank and start being aggresive to bigger fish that have been there awhile, but then again I don't know a whole lot about this.

 

[repair]

I would first get the ich under control and then you can worry about breeding them.

When mine spawned they dug a pit and then the male would swim in front of the female and shake. If the female didn't respond he would grab a plant and shake it.

 

[Ornatapinnis]

I believe you but, man, that seem small to be seeing noticable differances between males and females. A 3 1/2"er laying eggs? A 3"er with a noticable hump on its head? I have owned many green terrors although I'll admit the last large pair I had was about 10 years ago. I couldn't sex them untill they were 6' or more and even then I was not 100% positive. I had two pair up at about 8"-10" and spawn pretty regularly. They were 2-3 years old by then.

I recently got 6 of them about 2-3 inches long, I can't tell you what sex they are. I can't even tell you for sure what specie they are. (rivulatis I am hoping) One bullies the rest of them by flairing it's gills and chasing the others. It might be a male, might be an agressive female, I don't know, too small to tell.

I'm not really sure what to say about this, at this size they should not be mature enough to be spawing. I guess they could be stunted. I've seen lots of fish displaying adult colors when that are really small and should not be. I think this is caused by mass production of fish, inbreeding/crossbreeding & not being selective about what spawns together. Alot of undesirable traits are being bred into these mass produced fish. The quality of many fresh water fish have really declined in the last 15 years or so, especially with cichlids.

I am interested to hear other peoples experiances or opinions about this.

 

[Ornatapinnis]

Oh and I forgot...

THis isn't the same ich problem you asked for help with 10 days ago is it? It should be under controll by now.

And.....

You shoudn't be adding fish to an aquarium that is having parasite problems.

For get the spawning, You really need to get your tank under controll. How can we help?

 

[tothna]

Thanks guys, I'm not trying to breed them, I was just wondering about the behavior. The ich problem I had last week was another tank. My friend who had a GT and a catfish had them in a 20 gal and never did water changes, just added water when low, or never cleaned the tank at all, well he had a fish die(I wonder why) so he gave me the cat and GT because they looked like they were about to die, so he just came over one day and threw them in my tank when I wasn't there and now they both have ich.

 

[repair]

My male is 9 or 10" and the female had a clutch at 3.5--4" so I think the female may be able to breed and some of their babes are now 3.5" and you can really see the color in the males.

Also keep in mind some fish are just mean.

 

[tothna]

and about the hump on his head, I might be crazy but I swear it's gotten bigger in the last week. The fish was looking pretty bad when I put him in, so he's beefing up.

 

[repair]

Here are mine.