Aggression & feeding problems - Apisto Bitaeniata

[TW]

I have a juvi pair of Apisto Bitaeniata in a 90L tank, with the only other residents being 2 otos. The female is not at all tolerant of the male. She must have let him close on at least one occasion, as within a couple of days in my tank there were eggs, but she has eaten them now.

But whenever she sees the male, she goes after him. He doesn't need to be anywhere near her, but if she spots him on the other side of the tank she charges, tries to nip his retreating tail & chases him away. He is bigger than her, but seems a wimp & just runs away.

I don't have a spare empty tank, but thought perhaps I could move her into my community tank for a couple of months (provided she behaves in there). Then after the male has had a couple of months alone to establish his territory & maybe even mature a bit, I could move her back in & watch what happens.

Has anyone had this problem and how did you solve it. While fry would be nice, having the male fish survive is my highest priority. If need be, I'd rather have a happy male swimming around than either one who spends his life hiding from his female or (worst case) a dead male.

Also, finding it very hard to get these fish to take pellets. I try to drop them, so they fall right in front of their faces, but whether on purpose or by co-incident, they always turn away just before the food would have been in vision. These fish are supposedly tank raised, so I'm surprised that they don't get the hang of eating pellets.

How do I solve this problem. By day 5 of no eating, I gave in & bought some brine shrimp, which they did eat.

What to do? Any advice would be appreciated.

[Th0mas]

Firstly congratulation on your aquisition, and they've spawned so soon.

This kind of agression is common for a spawning female, here's two things you can try:

- place log, wood, plant, etc to provide places for him to retreat
- place him in a fry saver, so he can recover while keeping her away.

It has been reported domestic agression of spawning pair often resulted with the death of the male. Totally understand your situation as the bitaeniata "Tefe" aren't readily available in Sydney (probably you've got the only pair).

As for the eggs disappearance, I wouldn't blame on the apisto - could be the ottos as they do remain active in the dark and can wander into the spawning site where they've snacked on the eggs. How long did the eggs lasted? Any fungus on them?

What pellet do you feed them with? Generally apisto can be quite picky on food, but they won't resist on bloodworm or brine shrimp. One word of caution on bloodworm - don't start on them too quickly as some apisto cannot tolerate in their system and can die from having too much of it.

Tank raise doen't mean they're trained with dried food. Also it can be hexamitas (where the fish just don't have any appitite), watch out on the fish's condition and if they're getting thinner and thinner treat them with flagyl.

Cheers,
Thomas.

[wickedglass]

in addition to what Thomas has suggested, another trick for hiding places is to place floating tubes in the tank so the male can hide there, or divide your tank visually with rocks or plants or easter island heads or whatever you like to about 15 cm high. This has worked for my A. agassizii trio, I have them in a 2 ft tank and both females have their territories on either side of a stacked slate wall where they can't see each other, which the male can swim over from one side to the other. And if your female can't see the male, she won't aggro him, but he can keep checking on her readyness at will.
I don't feed my fish blood worms, but use blackworms instead, as the hard bits on bloodworms, such as the mandibles, could injure a fish's gut. One way to get a fish to accept the taste of flake or pellet food is to grind it really fine and mix in a little water, place your live or frozen worms (thawed) in the mixture for a few minutes and then pick them out and feed your fish with them. It may take some time, but I've weaned fish off live/frozen food using that technique successfully. Another one is to get them to take live worms from a worm feeder, and once they come to expect food from there place some pellet/flake into it before adding worms and they will get some of that with their worms.

[Th0mas]

Used to feed live blackworm as well but found them too much trouble and costly.

Buying in bulk keep the cost down (especially when you have discus), but the worm cannot stay alive for too long in a small container and has to be kept in the fridge to prevent it from going off (and this is where the missus disagree).

The other factor with blackworm is potential of parasite.

If the live worm escape from the fish's mouth, it can somhow survive and multiply in the substrate. This can server as occassional treat for your fish (and they're clean from unwanted parasite), but somehow I've found the blackworm that lives in the tank's substrate just don't have the black colour (turns purple/redish colour).

As for trouble with bloodworm, therefore they should be given a good mix of food (and not purely on the worm) to avoid the potential of digestive problem.

But most importantly, if the fish is getting thinner by the days - take him out and treat him with some flagyl (before he gets wasted away). Even though he may pick up occassional live food, but it may not be enough to get him back on track unless treated.

Thomas.

[TW]

Wow, thanks to you all for replying so quickly. I had thought about putting the male in a fry net, but thought that might have been mean - but I might give it a try.

It was definitely the female who ate the eggs, this first batch of eggs was near the front of the tank under some driftwood & I watched her eating them. The colour of the eggs looked good, very similar to the colour of spectrum small fish pellets I'm trying to feed them with. But maybe they developed fungus & I just couldn't see that.

They seem to be scared when I drop the food in the tank. I've been using Spectrum pellets for small fish. I will try all the various tips for feeding that you've all given me. Thanks very much.

If I need to treat with flagyl, do I get that from LFS?

I have tried to visually divide the tank - but maybe I didn't get the divisions high enough. I found a long, thin (but curvy) piece of driftwood, about 8-10cm high, when I was using as a sort of fence for the male to swim across, but I guess I should have gone higher. Next time I'm at LFS, I'll see what I can find that's higher. Here's a pic & you might be able to see the driftwood I used. On the left hand side, the driftwood might appear to have "disappeared" but it's just that I've tied some java moss to it.

So I think I had the right idea from what you guys have suggested, but the division is probably not high enough to allow him to swim freely behind it. Trouble is, before she ate her eggs, her territory seemed to be at the front of the tank - therefore I provided most of the cover at the back - but she seems to have moved to the back herself now.

[TW]

My camera & photography skills are very poor, but here is a picture of my male.

[TW]

and another with his fins spread. He is a juvenile & LFS said his colours will improve as he matures.

[TW]

and a shot of the two together, before she turned into such a terror.

[Th0mas]

Flagyl is a prescription drug for human consumption, but the active ingredient is exact identical for treating fish as well.

Some LFS may have some on hand for emergency, ring around and they may let you have a few. Otherwise explain your situation with your GP, the dosage can be found in the following thread:

http://www.discusforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7289

As for the pics, are you using a digital one?
What is the max optical focus you have on it?

Mine isn't great, takes a while to figure out how to get a better/clearer pic. The problem with most digital camera (not the latest and greatest one) is the small optical zoom with the auto focus only option. This make it extremely difficult to get a clear shot at a small fish, so what I had to do is to get focus to a bigger object near by and move your hand either forward or backward slight to adjust on the offset. Just keep shooting until what appears on the small LCD screen looked sharp (but may not be the case when you load it up in the computer).

Thomas.

[TW]

Thanks for the advise re the meds.

Re: the camera. I have a very basic kodak easyshare digital camera. From what I can see, I have no way to sharpen the pics. I can zoom in & out, but the more I zoom in, the worse the pic seems to be. I can take pictures on non moving items (rocks, plants etc) but my fish are always a blur. I wish I could take better pics. I'd love a better camera, but unfortunately, finances don't allow this at the moment.