Semaprochilodus taeniurus - aggressive to conspecifics?!!

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A

Ami

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 28, 2006
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Farnborough, UK
Okay, I've had my gorgeous flagtails for a couple of months now and three are about 6", but the youngest is about 1" smaller.

Most of the research I did before getting them said that my PEACFUL(!!!) pretty VEGGIE tetralike fish would be best in a small group, so I duly aquired 4 fish.

Over the past week I noticed that the 2 largest were chasing each other (like dogs chasing their own tails) and squaring up in the same way that male kissing gouramis do. Andywg mentioned on another forum that most people he knew who'd had flagtails ended up with only one (why he didn't tell me that before I got them.....?) and Paul_MTS has confirmed that he had to separate out his 5 because of the aggression.

Will they really kill each other if I can't separate them? I can move the smaller one to the planted tank but the other 3 need to stay in the larger tank as my other tanks are brackish.

Also, I've also read they'll eat pretty much anything and my experience over the past couple of months of them having a go at lancefish, prawns and mealworm shows that veggie ain't a very apt description neither.

Will the smaller one decide that my neons (don't laugh you at the back there!) are fair game?

Any advice would be appreciated, Cheers :confused:

Flagtails1.jpg
 
i had 5 in a 75 all dead but 1 withen a week and the last one died from bad wonds...

and li had one kill his flower ray
 
I had 2 small fladtails, they were peaceful, had them with mixed tropicals! Unfortunaely they died cause os a hard to cure disease I got in tank from another fish. Good luck with yours!
 
just get one to be safe... 99% of the time they will fight
 
Mixed views as always!! If only everyone would have the same experience with a fish and it would be easier to make choices :(

Well, 2 months and going fine - just seems like the 2 largest are deciding who's boss!

The smallest one is definitely going into the planted tank for his own safety, but the other 3 will just have to settle the argument and hopefully not die.

My Baensch says that they are peacful but often confused with P insignis, but that is also described as a peacful shoaling fish in the wild.

Rayman - could it have been a territory or lack of space thing? I mean, was the 75g big enough for 5? And is the other person you mentioned (li?) definite that the flagtails killed the ray?
 
mine was fine in my 90 with aggressive fish for months and one day he snapped and started harrasing my RT barracuda. it killed the cuda a few days later. he got his tho.
 
I bought 4 of them, over 5 inches each and slowly but surely only ended up with one. I guess they are one of those schooling fish where you need ALOT of individuals in your group, or else one will dominate. Also they will eat veggie, but will also eat ANYTHING else.
 
He killed a barracuda??!!!

How do they actually manage to kill something like that? Is it a case of harassing it to death, because they don't appear to have any way of actually inflicting physical damage?

Now I'm worried for the safety of my other fish (snakehead, tyre track eel, lima shovelnoses, freshwater archers)!!

Vanimate - you say they'll eat 'anything else'. Do you mean that they can be predatory and will therefore eat the smaller fish such as neons in my planted tank if I move any of them?

Why can't someone tell the fish that they're supposed to be peaceful, instead of the fishkeepers?!
 
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