Pondering changing my stock list...

[rrcoolj]

So I thought adding a larger fish to my tank would help calm my male cuban down. It hasn't. I recently added a female fenestratus to my tank in order to divert the aggression of my male cuban toward his mate. It worked for about a day. Now the fenestratus is dominant in the tank and the cuban male is still hostile toward his mate. He does not seem the least bit interested in spawning and is more interested in dominating everything he can in the tank. It is the strangest thing in the world because a couple of months ago they were so well bonded but as the male gets bigger he becomes more hostile towards everything. I feel like I have tried everything. These two just seem distant now. I could breed them with a divider I guess but that is not the route I want to go.

I am starting to wander If I should have kept the midas pair...

I have thought about trying to find a male for my fenestratus and going that route. Despite being the most dominant fish in the tank she is much less aggressive than my cubans. And since the fenestratus are larger I could try to employ the flowerpot technique that anubisscot used on his midas pair. At this point I just want a nice large fish(preferably pair) to fill out the tank. Even if the fens did not get along I could have a nice size showpiece male. At the same time I do not want to rush into things because I am a very inpatient person.

What do you guys think?

 

[Madness]

Size of tank? Size of fish? Then we can go from there.

 

[rrcoolj]

tank is 125 gallons with the pair of cubans(male 5" female 4") with 4 small centrarchus(2-3"), 1 female fenestratus(6"), and 5 silver dollars(3").

 

[Madness]

Maybe introducing another large male fish will help calm the Cuban down.

 

[Freshwaterpredators]

Hmm... If you could find cubans around that size I would suggest going with a few more female cubans. Or start from scratch with a group of them and let them pair out naturally

 

[rrcoolj]

Maybe introducing another large male fish will help calm the Cuban down.

Hmm... If you could find cubans around that size I would suggest going with a few more female cubans. Or start from scratch with a group of them and let them pair out naturally

Problem is finding good sized cubans. Any smaller cubans would be killed and as far as finding larger males or females, the largest cubans I can find are in the 2-3" range. It is very strange because most male cichlids hound the female to spawn. I know my female cuban wants to spawn. She constantly has her tube down and will shake in front of the male to get his attention. I also see the other typical signs like head shaking, digging pits, and cleaning possible spawning sights from the female. The male on the other hand rarely show interest in the female at all even when they were close and I have never ever seen the males tube down. At least with my midas I knew why the male hounded the female. It was because he wanted to spawn but my male cuban just seems to want to be aggressive.

I am kind of tired of the whole get 4-6 fish to get a pair thing because I have done it so many times. That is why i wanted to try maybe finding a male for my fenestratus and seeing if that works and if it doesn't at least I will have a nice sized fish to keep in the tank. I guess part of it is I am sick of looking at a bunch of small fish in a tank. Good news is it looks like I have a pair of centrarchus forming.