Picked up a wild caught H. Fasciatus last week Thursday. While i do have a WC pair of H. Fascitus I decided to pick this one up as they are still pretty rare. I met this person off of a local fish forum and we decided to meet at a pretty cool petshop here in WA. Fasciatus was about 4" and was missing the bottom portion of the tail. Fish still looked great! I was excited and scared at the time. Reason for being scared is the temperment of this fish. So, I take the fish home, put in in my 90g along with 2 WC H. Frempongi (4") 1 Dovii (3.5") 1 Festae (3"). The dominant Frempongi immediently started attacking the Fasciatus and I thought he was going to die. I re arranged the tank and that helped a bit. The next 2 days I kept a close eye on the tank, still all out war between the Fasciatus and the Frempongi. Fasciatus was starting to stand his ground and fight back. Saturday came, I turned the lights on in the tank and layed down on my bed (90g in bedroom) and watched the fish for about an hour. The Fasciatus made his mark on the tank and was terrorizing everyone. All you seen was fish flying in all directions running away. The dominent Frempongi, would turn around and hold his ground here and there and the Fasciatus still had respect for him. I noticed that the Fasciatus had some skin from it's lip peeled off. As i watched through out the day, looked like the Fremponi and Fasiatus both respected each other and still had things to prove to one another. Sunday comes, I turn on the lights in the tank, lay down on my bed and get ready to see what's happening. All I see is the Fascitus in the middle of the tank looking at me... My heart skips a beat as I think my tank has been destroyed overnight by 1 H. Fasciatus. I wait nervously hoping to see some fish come out of hiding... All of a sudden, I see a Frempongi dart accross the tank being chased by the other Fremponi. I was so excited to see them! Then I see the Frepongi (dominent one that was at war with the Fasciatus) turn around and approach the Fasciatus. I was thinking here we go!!! Time for war again.... Completey wrong! They stayed side by side for about 20 seconds then took off behind a big log. I was thinking, no freaking way! So I watch patiently for them to come back out. I see the Fasciatus chasing the Fremponi but it's different. It's not chasing to kill it, it's chasing in a mating way. They stay at the middle of the tank side by side and take aim at the rest of the fish in the tank. My other Frempongi didn't look to bad so I decided to run and get my daughter some milk from Star bucks. Gone for maybe 20 min and clean my holding tanks in my garage. I get back upstairs to take the other Frempongi out and it's dead!!! I couldn't beleive it! I wasn't even gone for 45min! I was so upset at the loss of such an awesome fish! I was also amazed at how fast this happened and how deadly they were. My WC Fasiatus pair didn't even kill a fish that fast! So it looks like I'll have some Hybrid babies (hopefully) Frempongi and Fasiatus. We'll see how this turns out! I know hybrids aren't good for the hobby but I am very curious to see what these fry turn out like.
Wish me luck!
Will
Wish me luck!
Will
