It's always nerve racking to introduce growouts into an established tank, but that is the goal of having growouts. The outcome is uncertain, as I have mixed success and failure in the past, and always have to be vigilance to intervene as needed.
Last week I moved nine 2 inch size CA growouts: C. nanoleutus, C. panamensis, C. sajica and iporanquensis to my established 125 with resident adult Africans and CA/SA up to 14 inch size. I chose to move them all at once to diffuse aggression. My large fish are only mildly aggressive Vieja and haplochromis species, and only one fish, a 9 in haplochromis compressisep is a pisivorous, but I never fed my fish with live food, so none have predatory instinct. Soon after I introduced the growouts, they all hided in rock piles. By next day, I found the growouts concentrated in one rock pile on one end of the tank, constantly interacting with with one another, but mutually ignored by the big tankmates. A resident male nanoleutus soon paired up with a female sajica growout, rather than with 2 female grououts of its own species. It appears to be successful as by the third day, the growouts are braver and a few have ventured out to the other end of the tank. Some have bruises though, but likely from fighting with one another than bullied by resident tankmates.
On my other established 75 show, I introduced 2 EB acara growouts. One did well and ventured out to feed along with large tankmates, but a second hided in a rock in 3 days and I had to rescue him out as he was pretty much beat up from smaller resident tankmates. It's not as successful as the tank is smaller and there were fewer introduction to diffuse the aggression.
Last week I moved nine 2 inch size CA growouts: C. nanoleutus, C. panamensis, C. sajica and iporanquensis to my established 125 with resident adult Africans and CA/SA up to 14 inch size. I chose to move them all at once to diffuse aggression. My large fish are only mildly aggressive Vieja and haplochromis species, and only one fish, a 9 in haplochromis compressisep is a pisivorous, but I never fed my fish with live food, so none have predatory instinct. Soon after I introduced the growouts, they all hided in rock piles. By next day, I found the growouts concentrated in one rock pile on one end of the tank, constantly interacting with with one another, but mutually ignored by the big tankmates. A resident male nanoleutus soon paired up with a female sajica growout, rather than with 2 female grououts of its own species. It appears to be successful as by the third day, the growouts are braver and a few have ventured out to the other end of the tank. Some have bruises though, but likely from fighting with one another than bullied by resident tankmates.
On my other established 75 show, I introduced 2 EB acara growouts. One did well and ventured out to feed along with large tankmates, but a second hided in a rock in 3 days and I had to rescue him out as he was pretty much beat up from smaller resident tankmates. It's not as successful as the tank is smaller and there were fewer introduction to diffuse the aggression.
