Heckelii conspecific aggression

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teqvet

Candiru
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Jan 31, 2009
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I've read that these guys usually start showing conspecific aggression around the 3 year mark. I've got 7 that I've grown from about 2" over the last year, with some about 6" and the others around 5" who during the WC that is ongoing as we speak have started acting out it a pretty bold way. 3 different pairs are liplocking, letting go, and then finding another heckelii to bully.. 3 more pairs lock up, do that deal, then rinse repeat. They're a bit over 1 year maybe, considering their juvie age when purchased.

Any ideas?
 
Mine started killing each other at about 3 years of age in a 150 gal.
There is an interesting article in the Oct 2006 Cichlid News Magazine by Radek Bednarczuk that discusses the conspecific aggression tendencies.
 
You don't say what size tank they are in.
In the Cichlid News article Radek suggests in order to avoid aggression, more than a 6 ft tank is needed.
Mine is a 6ft 150, and must say I tend to agree, it was too small, I was hoping the 7 Guianacara housed with them would distract, but the Guianacara were ignored.
The alpha heckelli seemed to target the least subordinate, and worked its way up the hierarchy, until just a pair remained. They were digging and displaying as if spawning was eminent, the there was 1.
 
I was going to suggest adding in another species as a target but obviously Duanes already tried that with Guinacara.

Maybe only keeping them in an established pair or just keeping them in a number of 10+ would help? I have 3 right now about the 2-3" mark and they show no interest in eachother or anyone else. they eat like pigs though
 
They're in my 125g, sig below. I had intended to pair them down from the 7 to 3 and then down to a pair or to 1.. but hadn't planned on it being so soon I guess. There are 6 rh taps, + a small shoal of bleeding heart tetras and some black neon tetras so it's not like there aren't other fish to distract.. they just don't care about anything except each other.

Mind you, they aren't going out of their ways to start fights... it's just as they drift within proximity of each other these tiffs occur.

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I actually rehomed the blue acara's 2 weeks ago. They went from being bosses of the tank to full blown bullies and were breaking up the rh taps spawning.
 
I have a group of six presently about 1 1/2 years of age. I've been keeping them with 9 G. winemilleri in a 90G tank. Until about a month ago all was well. Then one of them exhibited dominant behaviors, only towards the other heckelii. He took over one end of the tank and if any other heckelii came near, even for feeding, he would protect his territory (i.e. short term chasing and nipping). The other 5, in a few days were showing signs of stress from these unprovoked attacks. From previous experience, I knew I had to act fast. I purposely keep a very strong water flow in the tank to inhibit aggression but even with that, 'he' continued his antics. So I moved him out into a 180G SA biotope tank with no other heckelii in there. I know that the aggression might have been minimized having all of them in a larger tank, and I had virtually no structure in it for breaking lines of sight. But I've never really experienced extreme aggression in this species, and the 'three year mark' onset , I haven't experienced. I do know that this species is extremely easily stressed and even with, what would be considered minimal bullying by other cichlid standards, they will succumb. They are not inherently a tough fish. I think too, that keeping a group of them with several other compatible, non aggressive species that can provide distraction seems to promote a more peaceful outcome. Here's a pic of a group of 3+ years old heckelii, among which I never saw any real aggressive tendencies.
 
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teqvet said:
I have a Hydor Koralia Evolution Aquarium Circulation Pump 1400-1500 running w/ them that I cycle on/off with water changes. It hasn't seemed to dim anything as far as activity goes.
Click to expand...

Did you already remove several of the heckelii?
 
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