Dead fish/Newbie question

["Tomoko Schum" <tomokoschum@earthlink.net>]

Hi everyone,

I recently acquired a pair of A. agassizzii in
addition to five A. borellii.  They are all doing
well.

However, when I moved my aggie pair to 75 gallon
heavily planted tank several days ago, my
trifasciata male who has been living in the 75G
tank quite peacefully for a few month suddenly
turned very aggressive toward his own females.
Yesterday morning, I found two of my trifasciata
females dead.  I still have one female trifasciata
left.  She is the smallest of the three females I
had and she was always chased back into the pearl
grass jungle by the male every time she comes out
of the far corner of the tank.  I guess she
learned to hide well enough to survive the ordeal.
Now she has taken the territory that used to
belong to the most dominant female.  The male is
keeping an eye on her but so far she has managed
to hide into a bush to avoid his attack.

I was told that agassizzii are relatively gentle
and mix well with other gentle apistos.  So the
pair went into a 20 gallon long tank with four of
the borellii (one male and three females) I
acquired together.  In 20 gallon long, I found the
young male aggie to be somewhat bossy, but not
really aggressive.  Upon seeing the interaction in
the tank, I thought it would be best to leave
borellii by themselves and move the aggie pair to
75G tank so that the borellii can get used to
their new surrounding and get to know each other
without a  distraction.  In 75G tank the
aggassizzi male found the trifasciata male right
away.  The trifasciata male gets excited but they
tolerate each other.  Quasi borellii (lazor blue?)
males don't seem to care at all.  The quasi
borellii males never caused any aggression in
trifasciata male.  I guess trifasciata male did
not care since they look very different from each
other.  But now with aggie in the tank the
trifasciata male has turned very rough on his own
females.  I don't know if he is the one who really
killed his females but he is the most likely
suspect.

I am in the process of setting up another 20
gallon long.  I was thinking about moving the
trifasciata for breeding purpose.  I started
cycling the tank last Sunday and I am waiting on
the arrival of a heater from a mail order source.
But I don't know if my little female will survive
the next few days.   I don't even know if it is
best to move the male and the remaining female to
the new tank now that he is so agitated.  Maybe I
should move the female first to the tank to let
her establish her own territory?  The tank has
been planted and I will be putting a lot of pots,
too.  Should I go ahead and catch the female now
and put her into a breeding container (the plastic
kind that hangs inside of a main tank often used
for live bearers)?

Sorry for the long post, but I can sure use some
help.

Tomoko






-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the apistogramma mailing list, apisto@listbox.com.
For instructions on how to subscribe or unsubscribe or get help,
email apisto-request@listbox.com.
Search http://www.digital.com for "Apistogramma Mailing List Archives"!