paring up medium to large cichlids

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paring up medium to large cichlids Empty paring up medium to large cichlids

Post  rattle1972 2010-07-20, 13:27

so i have been trying to pair up my festae for about a month or more. i have a total of 6 festae. 3 male ( 4" , 6" , 8") and 3 female (3" 6-7" and about 9"). when i first got the big pair, put them all together. the largest female immediatly started chasing everyone away. the 7" female immediatly showed spawning colors with the big male. after about a hour she dropped the colors and went to acting scared of the large female. so i moved all the smaller festae to a different tank and just left the two large ones together. nothing, for about a month. anytime he came close to her she would chase him away to the other side.

so a couple days ago, started moving fish around. i put the large male, and the medium male in with the 7" female. female immediatly put on those colors again....

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the male didnt seem to show any interest at all. this went on for about 3 or 4 hours. then the female droped the colors and went back to normal. the male all of a sudden got real aggresive towards smaller male. chasing him everywere. occasionally chasing the female. but not ast much. they have been together for about 2 days now, and the only thing i think is if i dont move that smaller male, he is a dead man.

so now im thinking about putting the two biggest female in with the biggest male... once i took the big male out of the tank with the big female she started putting on brighter colors , looking real pretty. but at the moment there is only a 3 inch male in with her, so i dont think they are going to do anything.

all of them with the exception of the two smallest ones are wild caught. anyone have any ideas on tricks to get them to pair up?

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rattle1972
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Post  sandnuka 2010-07-20, 14:27

oooo... this is a good question! I know kingstature breeds allot of S. American and New World cichlids.... he has some tricks too.... I think he is on vacation, but when he gets back I will make sure he reads this thread if you havent gotten any good advice by then.

The only thing I can suggest from stuff I read is keepin them in smaller tanks together with a divider, and bare bottom with no hiding spots.... maybe make a whole big enough for the female to go thru the divider, but not the male so she can retreat. Good luck, and thanks for the amazing pictures. I love em.
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Post  Addictedtofish 2010-07-20, 17:49

Ive been through this several times with some S. Americans and Discus, what ive read and been told by a couple of breeders is if you have a decorated tank setup with alot of hiding spots you will get this behavior, I feel the best bet to get them use to all being in the same tank is remove the decorations and maybe leave a spawning platform to entice spawning. Its also best to introduce them all to the same tank together instead of adding to existing fish that are already in there. Other option is to re decorate the tank if you have fish already in there then add the new ones. Ive had the best luck adding all the fish to a tank together and cut down on decorations that is big enough for them to claim territory. Also if the tank is big enough for alot of free roam you might still get aggression, so try to pick a tank thats not to large but not to small. Hope my advice helps some.
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Post  HALP 2010-07-21, 02:20

Can try to put in a few target fish for them to have a common enemy. Just got to hope and pray they don't try and pair up with whatever you add.

My texas paired up with like 7 other fish in the tank. Some were bigger than them so i think they just figured if they teamed up they could take over the tank and they did. And big water changes always got them to do the nasty!
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Post  rattle1972 2010-07-21, 12:04

so i moved the 6inch male back into the community tank. he was getting beat up way to bad. went back to watching my tv, and during a advo' i came back to get somthing and the 6" male and the 4" female were both all colored up doing there little "look at me" thing. so now i have two pairs to watch. didnt get good pics of them last night,, but got a couple this morning. they are not all colored up. but definetly working together on the other fish.

well i was going to add pics but dosnt seem to be working!!!! grrrrrrrrrr

anyways... right now im trying a couple different things. in the community tank there are alot of target fish. including a bigger festae. and it has alot of decorations. lots of hiding spots and caves and so forth. so not sure if that is going to work out. in the other one, there is now just the pair, with three bottom fish, that never really come out of hiding. there is one big cave i made up for them with a large strawberry pot and a piece of wood.

i do a incredibel amount of water changes. having very clean water is one of the common things i read about with festae. i did get some advice from a friend that im going to try. and hopefully it will work out.

thanks for the comments and i will keep you posted! whistle
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