I recently bought a 2yo krib pair, and the male died. My female basically just hides in her coconut shell cave all the time. They came from a community tank and apparently she was hand fed and very friendly. I guess the stress of moving and losing her mate will take a while to recover from.
Two days ago I moved her into my new 160L (40gal?) tank with a sandy substrate (from my 60L). Atm the tank is set up very minimal because I want to introduce new things slowly. I put a tunnel and her coconut cave from the last tank in there with her, and there are 3 fake plants that came with the tank as well as a small Giant Baby Tears plant that I just bought. I've put a male guppy and two juvenile guppies in there with her.
I'm sure she's already much happier, she's been digging around in the sand, made a small pile outside her 'door' and been spitting sand out the top of her cave as well (yeah, my 5yo son 'made another window' in it for her...!). I also have a terracotta pot as another cave but just waiting for my java moss to arrive as I want to plug the drainage hole with that before putting it in the tank.
But I really want to get another male for her. I've read that kribs can bond for life... but how likely are they to accept a new mate? My LFS has a male for me now so I've dropped a water sample off for them to check as I want to double-check that the tank has cycled properly (tested before I moved the fish in as well) and figure out how long I should wait before introducing another fish.
But my big question is, is there anything I can do to provide an environment that will encourage them to bond?
Here's a pic of her coconut shell, you can see the little pile of sand out the front and bits of sand out the top where she's spat them out ?
Two days ago I moved her into my new 160L (40gal?) tank with a sandy substrate (from my 60L). Atm the tank is set up very minimal because I want to introduce new things slowly. I put a tunnel and her coconut cave from the last tank in there with her, and there are 3 fake plants that came with the tank as well as a small Giant Baby Tears plant that I just bought. I've put a male guppy and two juvenile guppies in there with her.
I'm sure she's already much happier, she's been digging around in the sand, made a small pile outside her 'door' and been spitting sand out the top of her cave as well (yeah, my 5yo son 'made another window' in it for her...!). I also have a terracotta pot as another cave but just waiting for my java moss to arrive as I want to plug the drainage hole with that before putting it in the tank.
But I really want to get another male for her. I've read that kribs can bond for life... but how likely are they to accept a new mate? My LFS has a male for me now so I've dropped a water sample off for them to check as I want to double-check that the tank has cycled properly (tested before I moved the fish in as well) and figure out how long I should wait before introducing another fish.
But my big question is, is there anything I can do to provide an environment that will encourage them to bond?
Here's a pic of her coconut shell, you can see the little pile of sand out the front and bits of sand out the top where she's spat them out ?