6-7" festae (nwcichlids)

i am almost positive it is female. the only thing that says im not is i ahve seen pics on the interent of proven males in all these colorations. she is one mean fish also. she gets moved around between all my tanks, because she just beats the hell out of everyone. the only tank she fits in ok is the ornatums, cause they all seem to team up on her.

she is ofcourse the smaller one
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here she is all washed out
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and ofcourse the one that makes me think she is female. she only does this when fighting another fish. witch is alot
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so how are these fish aggressiveness towards other species?

Red terror... name kinda says it all. but, I know rattle, seen his tanks, and he has a nice mix of fish in there just fine.

well i have a 8 inch female in a 100 gal with smaller green terror and a mayan cichlid, a 8 inch losellei, and just yesterday added a midas cichlid to the loop. she chases them away from her hideout but dosnt hurt anyone.

then i have a 10 inch pair im trying to spawn, in with 5 much smaller umbriferus and a jaguar cichlid in a 125 gal. and the 2 inch umbriferus is much more aggressive.

overall i think the festae has a bad reputation. i would say they are territorial, but i would definetly not say they are aggressive. they are beautiful fish with awsome personalities. if i compared them to my green terror, mayan cichlid and umbees, then they are pussycats!!!

So any luck finding that female you got from me a boyfriend ??

hbluehunter wrote:So any luck finding that female you got from me a boyfriend ??

ya i found a real pretty male. 10 inches. its the one i got from pet pourri. he had some health issues, but i believe i got them all taken care of.
been slowly dropping temp got it down to about 75 now... tuesday im going to plug my heater back in and see if they like each other... [img][You must be registered and logged in to see this link.][/img]

Sweet, he looks like a nice male too.. Hope he works out for ya and you get a nice pair.

rattle1972 wrote:overall i think the festae has a bad reputation. i would say they are territorial, but i would definetly not say they are aggressive. they are beautiful fish with awsome personalities. if i compared them to my green terror, mayan cichlid and umbees, then they are pussycats!!!

I think you have festea that are exceptions to typical festea behavoir. These guys or more specifically the females can be down right nasty. I have seen many people have to give just there festea a tank to themselves. Sounds like yours is housed with some pretty heavy hitters though. But I would say don't underestimate your festea, they useually blow up all at once and unless your pretty overstocked something is going to die when they do.

On a note of aggresion every fish is diffrent, I at one point had a "five star general" that was easily the most aggresive fish I have ever (over 12 years of cichlids) kept. So maybee yours are just whimps....

O.P. great looking pair. I hope it works out for you.