Tank mates not getting along?

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LukeOscar

Polypterus
MFK Member
Mar 23, 2013
1,693
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ontario
One thing i never see anyone talking about is an introduction order. To confusing? Ill share my experience.

I have a superred arowana. I adopted 2 fish from the same tank. An oscar and a jack dempsey.

I put the 2 with my super red and he bullied both of them right away. The oscar stood sideways half leaned over for 48hours while the dempsey hid.

For some reason i thought of doing this.

Removing the fish and introducing them back in different order. I first removed the oscar and almost right away the dempsey came back out and he and the arowana were fine together. I removed the arowana and added back the oscar and the dempsey and the oscar were fine.

So finally what worked for me was this : arowana and dempsey first. Oscar last. The dempsey picked on the oscar but the arowana ignored both. I then removed the dempsey for 5 minutes and put him back. No fighting or agression between all 3.

This seems crazy because this is all in the same tank, same 3 fish. But it has worked for me.




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Strange isn't it my arrow I recently moved my tank to diff house , before hand he used to chase my wolf fish about everywhere ( its the second and slightly bigger he ate the first ) and now there swimming around together , it must be coz I put all the other fish in first arrow last
 
I too am surprised there hasn't been anyone bringing this "theory" up in a thread. It has ran thru my head in the past, but i guess i never put too much additional into it. When i had RBP, (initially purchased at 1") i introduced them into a tank that was home to a 7-8" common pleco for a few months before hand. All while having them there were never any aggression issues. The pleco would actually confront the school of 6 which were then ranging from 4" to 6" and throw his head about and they would submit. I guess having the RBP "grow up" in the pleco's tank they were always under the mind set that they were in "his" territory.

Good call on drawing attention to this


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One thing that always bothered me about red bellies.... People always seem to add other fish after the fact.

So the fish you drop in is not only in RBP territory.. Hes stressed. Def decreases your chances. I know its not wise to do that with RBP anyways. But it would probably help.


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often times just re-arrangeing the decor works well.. but i have found moving fish around and being careful in introduction order works wonders for some fish.. my cuban gar was the last fish into their new tank, and the last fish added to the tank they lived in before... compared to some of the horror stories of cbg being as aggressive as alligator gar i was worried i'de lose other fish.. But he's a big mellow dude unless its feeding time, so he gets fed first ( something not often talked about either)

tbh this kinda stuff is second nature to me.. my father use to keep SW then was big into african cichlids "back in the day" so i was brought up around doing such "tricks" to maintain peace in my tanks.. and i find its better safe then sorry so it's just a practice i've used. doesn't always work.. but sometimes all it takes is not just stocking a tank with the right inhabitants, but stocking in the right order as well... most docile fish first, most territorial last.

Glad it's working for you, sometimes it works indeffinately and soemtimes you need to change things baout every now and then to maintain the peace. prolly why I avoid territorial fish nowadays.. they're to sassy lol.
 
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