Firemouth Bully! Please suggest solution

[aquamate]

Hello mates,

Just bought a couple of Firemouths. They are SO beautiful:

But I've noticed that one of them is very aggressive towards the other. Almost 70% of the time, for no apparent reason, he rushes towards him and pecks him on the tail, gill area or near the mouth. Sometimes, he rushes towards and just rams himself against the victim. See Video below (only 21 seconds)

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As a result, the victim is always cordoned off near one corner of the tank, between the leaves of the plastic plants. If he tries to swim in the open area, the aggressor immediately chases him into the same corner.
They are no other fish in the tank. I tried shifting the 'victim' into another fish tank (community), but he turns into an aggressor himself.

Funnily enough, despite the almost constant pushing and pecking by the aggressor, the victim does not seem to have sustained any overtly visible injuries (wounds). He seems more psychologically hurt than physically so.
During feeding, I have to specially put some food in his corner, else the aggressor does not allow the victim to even feed properly.

Is this normal for cichlids? Is there any way to curb such aggression?
Am I missing something here, like they may be a male-female pair and this is 'normal' behaviour...

My LFS guy advises me to put a large similar cichlid like a Blue Acara or a Red Devil, who he says will control the firemouth's aggression. My only fear is that the new guy should not trouble the victim Firemouth and make his life more miserable than what it already is...!

Any suggestions on what to do?

Thanks in advance.

Aquamate

 

[colleen0309]

I don't think getting another bully to bully the original bully is the answer... say that 10 times really fast! I have 2 large silver angelfish in a 55 gallon who have the same problem. I ended up removing the aggressor to a different tank. I tried to reintroduce the two after a week and found that that made the problem worse. Now the passive Angelfish has decided enough is enough and won't tolerate the nasty one.

 

[joel.uejio]

I would say that's pretty normal -- At one point I had four firemouths in a 75g and one of them did the exact same thing to the other three. My bully FM was pretty evil overall actually...

I don't think adding one more cichlid will help -- like you say, it may just change who the bully is. Ideas that I think might work:

1. Upgrade to a larger tank so there's more territory
2. Add "target" fish like giant danios to distract attention
3. Bring the bully FM back to your LFS <-- that's what I did

Good luck!

 

[rockhoe14er]

I notice that you have a lot of plant in the tank but no solid territories. I would suggest on getting some rocks to give more definite territories.

What i think is going on is that the agro firemouth thinks the whole tank is his territory and is chasing the other one away. You need to make more territories in the tank like caves to help reduce agression. Also i don't think it would be horrible to add some target fish. You could add a couple more firemouths to the tank to help disperse the aggression.

 

[Jannika]

I'm not sure that other fish would help much because they can't stand their own kind, they see them as competition. It probably won't end well for the one being bullied unless you take him back or rehome him. I still have a danio in my cichlid tank that everyone ignores.

 

[Rbishop]

I would take them both back...two of them in the 18 gal tank is unsuitable, and they don't mix with what is in your 46 gal tank even if it has more space. You will see the same thing happen soon with the 2 Oscars you have in a 16 gal tank....

 

[betta splendens]

It sounds like pretty normal firemouth behavior. I have two male firemouths in a 75 gallon tank and they still act that way. I suggest taking them back to the store and getting a cichlid more suited to that size of a tank. Maybe a dwarf cichlid or some shell dwellers?

 

[RazzleFish]

I would take them both back...two of them in the 18 gal tank is unsuitable, and they don't mix with what is in your 46 gal tank even if it has more space. You will see the same thing happen soon with the 2 Oscars you have in a 16 gal tank....

:iagree: