Reducing aggression.

[powellmacaque]

I have a male firemouth in a 55 gallon that is well rocked, wooded, and fake-planted. He is currently living with 2 blood parrots, a zamora wood cat, and a, 8" goldfish. I know the goldfish needs to leave, and I am working on moving him. But the firemouth seems to be quite aggressive towards other members (besides the catfish) of the tank, the goldfish in particular. One of the BP's is quite a bit larger, so he doesn't get bothered as much, but the small one gets chased quite a bit. I should also add that I just recently added the second BP (after rearranging the tank quite a bit.

I was thinking of maybe adding more firemouths, but I don't want any slaughtering to occur. Will this reduce aggression? What can reduce the aggression in this fish, if anything?

[jpappy789]

Adding more fms would just increase the chance of breeding, which would worsen your problem. Main thing is that a goldfish is an easy target. The sooner you remove it the better.

[smitty]

You have an aggressive Firemouth paired with non aggressive fish. He has obiviously sensed their fear. I think that you need to consider other tank mates. I can also see adding more firemouth's adding to your problem.

[powellmacaque]

What tankmates would be better suited?

[powellmacaque]

Oh, and my reasoning behind adding more firemouths to reduce aggression is it seemed to me that when I had another firemouth with this one, there was very little aggression, and they only showed signs of aggression when a fish got in their "zone". The other firemouth has since passed, and it seems this firemouth's aggression has increased as it seems to think that the whole bottom of the tank is his now.

If I were to get all males, would that be better? I can tell a firemouth's sex fairly easily.

[Squawkbert]

I would re-home the GF and the BPs, then toss in a mature example of a large, not-so-aggressive new world Cichlid.

I'd be certain of a generous return policy for this experiment, and it will take a week of fairly vigilant tank watching, but it may work-
- a larger Sevrum would be ideal as (if it's big enough) the FM won't pick on it, and it is not a uber aggressive genus. Also - they won't get way too big for a 55g.
- If none are available, maybe a somewhat larger Green Terror from a fairly crowded, larger tank would be OK.
- I'd avoid JDs (too aggressive) and Oscars (too wimpy, too large).

If you have a single male FM (as in you re-home the BPs), adding a single female would work as long as you keep it at that and catfish.

[gspille]

I'd say avoid the GT, too. Just IME, they're too agressive!