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I had a pair and two extra males, tried to reduce it just to the pair, but this made the pair fight and so had to reintroduce the other two males. Of course the aggression towards the extra males has worsened, and there is even some aggression between the pair that lingers though they mostly went back to being a pair as soon as they had other fish to direct their aggression towards.
The chasing seems to be only when I feed them, and the other fish are still able to get food but it seems the female of the pair is more determined to bully the extra males now.
Shouldn’t have disrupted the fish, there was some chasing but it’s worse now. I mostly see pairs of vaillantis on youtube videos but the bond was not the same with my fish.I think what you describe sounds like what we have been discussing before with chokolate gouramies, that to have a small ‘flock’ is good in order for agression to be dispersed, or maybe more to keep a natural hieraki, – so at least bringing back the couple of males was good in order to make the pair ‘bond’ – as I understand it.
Arent fish always more ‘agressive’ around feeding ? When I had the bigger gouramies – gold, pearl – I learned that it seemed that the dominant male would ‘allow’ the females to feed when food was there, but then after he would have to ‘re-affirm’ his dominant role and would chase them a bit extra, so they didnt ‘forget’ that he was dominant.I don’t know how good their memory is, I see them swim back into danger right after they get chased, in particular a female that is the only fish with no partner will get chased and then sometimes wander right into the territory of the fish that just chased it.
Maybe it’s just their natural behavior not working in a small space where in the wild they would have escaped.
The two pairs seem to know the invisible line that divides their territories. Right within eyesight of each other, they will display and only if a fish has gone over the line will a serious fight break out. Usually when a fish has gone over the line it will submit and back off, at least that’s what the weaker pair will do if it knows it is in the dominant pairs territory.
I tried to aquascape the tank with as many roots as possible, but removing them and leaving the tank mostly empty except for floating plants and a few roots has drastically improved the aggression problem. I had to disrupt them to try and reset the pecking order. Sometimes it seems like if the fish see each other it actually helps them avoid fighting. Reminds me of when I had a tank full of carinotetraodon lorteti and breaking up the lines of sight just meant they could ambush each other and get a few bites in.
I didn’t even know I had three females before redecorating was successful, but all of a sudden they had their color on. Their territorial behavior is interesting and it seems like a large group really is important, maybe if you have ten or a fairly large group they will “school” somewhat. Or maybe they will just break up into pairs and the crowding will not help at all. The pair I had that I tried to keep alone proved that they atl east need other fish to redirect their aggression away from each other.It’s true at feeding time they’re the most aggressive, I just looked at them and three of them were in one corner motionless while two others were at random places and motionless, all of them facing in the same direction. They seem like there must be very little aggression when they are left alone for most of the day. Maybe they benefit from each others company during that time period.
🙂 Now you have got me hooked, – from saturday I will have 8 little sphaerichthys vaillanti’es swimming in a 60 liter tank. They are pretty small, only six months and 3 cm big.
I am really looking forward to getting more experience with this beautiful fish, and will of course share if I learn something 🙂 …Mine were probably about that size at first, they’ve gotten bigger pretty quickly so maybe that’s right when they reach adulthood.
They pair up fast, but I read they take time to mature and breed. I haven’t had mine breed yet though there are two pairs, you’d think they wouldn’t waste too much time, maybe there’s a reason they haven’t yet.Interesting observation, there is one pair that has its own territory and another trio- there are two females and one is dominant towards the other but they stay near each other and near the same male.
They used to fight viciously, and traded places as the partner of the same male, to the point one of them has slight jaw damage from the violence.
Now they are not completely peaceful but they don’t try and chase each other out of their territory, one is aggressive towards the weaker one but it remains near it in the same territory unlike the past when the weaker one had to hide.
And there has been no breeding of any of these fish, maybe there is too much crowding and aggression.
Every youtube video seems to show a pair of vaillantis in a community tank, maybe this is a good way to keep them since I saw a pair turn into a male bullying a female when I removed the other fish in the tank.Jacob, some questions:
1. Have the health problems of your fish been solved? And how?
2. How big is your tank in which you observe that aggressive behaviour?
3. Are there other fish present?
4. How old are the vaillanti?The fish are healthy, that only was a problem when there was some bullying and when I used the wrong water, the symptoms went away when the fish settled in and the water was corrected (medicine was used in that case which reduced symptoms but the proper water seemed to make a bigger difference than the medicine- skin symptoms dissappeared with medicine but fish were still inactive until the water conditions were corrected).
The tank is 2 feet long, and 20 inches deep and high. It has about 25 gallons of water in it, it’s not totally full but it’s a Red Sea Max 130 which has 34 gallons of water, inlcuding a 5 gallon sump I don’t use so I’m guessing 25 gallons is in there.
There are 5 vaillantis, 4 parosphromenus and 7 ceylon dwarf barbs, they don’t seem to bother the vaillantis, all of these fish ignore each other except for the intra specific aggression between the vaillantis and sometimes between the paros.
The vaillantis were about one inch when I got them this summer, so maybe 4+ months since then.
They look full grown, though I’ve read it takes them a long time to breed, that they mature slow.You may have a situation in which you’re actually seeing agression between females. Subdominant females will adopt male coloration as a means of decreasing their threat to the dominant female. Aggression between males is not unheard of in this species but most intraspecies aggression is between females. I’ve kept them quite successfully in groups and in pairs. To maximize their production I would keep a pair or a female with two or three males. Be sure that there are plenty of hiding places so that any fish getting picked on has a place to hide.
MarkOne male died, the only explanation since all other fish look fine is that it was mouthbrooding and that stressed it.
I don’t even know if it was that male but there are only two and one was seemingly mouthbrooding for a few weeks. Never saw any babies but there are so many fish in this tank they easily could have been eaten right away.
Or the male was hiding and not eating for some other reason, but it looked like mouthbrooding.
Can that process really stress them enough to kill them not that long after?
There were several days after it stopped apparently mouthbrooding and when it died, almost a week.
Never looked sick and no other fish shows stress.[quote=”Jacob” post=796](…) Can that process really stress them enough to kill them not that long after? (…) [/quote]
Yes, to all we know it can. But in nature after having released the young, not before. We have not solved all aquarium-problems of the chocolates up to now. Even experts who succeeded in breeding them report about single sudden weaknesses and deaths. I am afraid I can’t tell you more. A week ago Horst Linke told me of sudden deaths of his Vaillants. He could not say why.
How easy are the licorice! 😉Post script to this thread, I recently quit keeping the parosprhomenus and vaillantis. Producing enough r/o water for it was a chore. Endlessly hatching bbs was also a chore- there was too much water and too much live food needed. The tank was not understocked, that was a bad idea. Just too big of a tank with too many fish in it, and no babies to show for it.
Want to keep parosphromenus in the near future, in a small tank as is recommended.
These fish are at Uncle Ned’s Fish Factory, unless someone bought them in the last few days.
A pair of vaillantis, two female vaillantis, and probably one female and two males of parosphromenus sintangensis(?).
Separate question, is parosphromenus paludicola available very often? I haven’t seen it for sale from the places that I see licorice gouramis for sale from. The description says it is an easier and more widespread species but I don’t see it for sale anywhere.
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