Con Aggression

[canucksfan1]

I have 3 young cons in a 23 gallon tank. It has a half pot an rock with a small overhang and a few live plants in it. The biggest con (about 2 inches) hasn't been lettin the others (1.5 and almost 2") do anything really they spend most of there time in the top corner of the tank and only really move around when they eat or the big one is chasing them. I was wondering if maybe addin some more feeder white clouds or some other fish would decrease the aggresion between the cons??? If so what fish would you suggest?

O and i know this tank will be 2 small but it is only temporary and when i find i have a definate male and a definate female one will be going to my lfs, and also in a few moths they will be going into my 29 when i get it back and get it all setup.

[fishfreak317]

whats the dimensions of the tank. IMHO 23gal is to small for even cons. unless it is a bonded pair. the big one is obviously the dominate one. the others might be young males as well. do any of them have any red on their bellies?

[canucksfan1]

No not yet but i did just get them a couple of days ago so could that affect there colour right now??

[Subliminal]

I've had convicts for a long time, and they are definitely territorial.

I'd suggest moving around your decor quite a bit so that they all have to select new homes.

Usually, once fish are cornered up in the top of the tank, in my experience, it's only a matter of time before they just stress out and...

Well, you get it. Changing the decor is like making them all move into a new neighborhood. They have to get settled before they can cause problems with their neighbors. :)

[canucksfan1]

Well the only things i can really move are the rock and the pot the others are live plants (which i guess are poosibbly moveably but they are pretty well rooted where they are)

[Subliminal]

Well, you have 3 fish and basically 2 houses on your block. You should really try making 3 places for these fish to call home (behind a rock or a piece of wood, or someplace that they can hide from you and others).

Or just take the aggressor, or the other 2 back to the fish store.

[Subliminal]

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f317/damontmorris/DSC00154.jpg?t=1172514276


If you look at my setup, you can see that I have a whole bunch of rocks in there and the 2 pieces of driftwood. 2 of the convicts have made one piece of the driftwood their home, and the other, single, most aggressive one made the other side its property.

They stll spend a few hours a day keeping an eye on each other, though. Territorial is a good word to describe it, I think. ;)

[canucksfan1]

i just moved some things around and added a pice of DW and a rack from my other tank so will see if that helps, do u think addin some small feeder fish will take away some of the aggresion between them

[Subliminal]

I don't think adding more fish is your answer, but I guess it's possible. I wouldn't recommend it, but I'm just a hobbiest like yourself...not an expert by far. ;)

[canucksfan1]

Well hopefully before they get too aggresive i will get my other tank back and set up. Its a 29 gallon tank that i have lent out for a while. I wasn't really planning on gettin the fish till i get the bigger tank back, but when i phoned the lfs too find out if they could get some there was someone there trying to get rid of 3 so i decided to take them (considering they were free and i knew i could keep them in my 23 for at least a lil while) unfortuantly i wasn't counting aggression in the way of 1 vs. 2 i was more expecting a male and female vs. the other in which case i would bring one to the lfs. I guess i wasn't really thinkin of the possibility of having 3 males, which unfortuantly seems to be the case, maybe i will go to my lfs today and see if i can trade 2 males for a female??

[DeRo316]

I would maybe add a few more rocks to provide more hiding places for the other cons.

[Subliminal]

Sure looks like there should be enough places for those guys to hide out.

Sometimes it happens...:(

[canucksfan1]

They seem to be alright i now i added anothe large rock beside the other one and kinda made like a small cave, so hopefully they will stay fine till i get my other tank back

[mandy-2007]

In the first pic the convict on the left looks like it just has some colour to its belly i can't really tell it might just be the lighting but ohwell . . . . good luck

When i got my first pair of convict i knew they were a diffinant pair (they were kinda breeding in a pot at the fish store and the staff didn't know) i felt bad leaving the eggs all alone with a bunch of firemouths but i desperatley wanted convicts lol :) anywayz good luck with ya tank (s).


OOps sorry just noticed that pic was from a different member sorry .

[canucksfan1]

Yea i'm hoping mine will develop colour soon but they are prolly all males which kinda sucks, my lfs here hasn't had convicts on his list for a while so i don't know if i will be able to get a female or not, i got these ones for free from some guy who was trying to get rid of them so my lfs called me and let me now (my lfs is good for that).

[alan j t]

i would just add a danio there fast enough not to get beat up and it would keep the other fish busy

[Spridell]

Any updates on how it turned out with your cons?

I got 3 last week 2 females and 1 male. The male and one of the females bonded within 1 day and she laid about 30 eggs. The male and the female started attacking the other female so i took it out of the tank. The bonded pair were taking care of the eggs together and everything was fine.

Now a week later the female is in the pot with her fry and is chasing the male away from the pot. The male is in the top corner of the tank all day. I added the other female back today to see what that will do. Now she is attacking both fish and keeping them on the top of the tank

I dont really know why the female just turned on the male like that.

[canucksfan1]

I ended up seperating all mine one is is my 55 one is in my bro's 55 and one is still in the 23, i am just waiting for my lfs to get in some conicts so i cna pick up a female, he said he will let me now as soon as he can get some but he said he hasn't seen them on his list for a long time?? So who knows when he will get some

[makhcd]

My cons seem like the color is washed out of them... i am waiting for the color to come in to see which ones are males and females but it's not. ive had them for 2 weeks and i want to get rid of all but one female and one male but cant yet? In the tank from the store some cons the same size as mine were faded like mine and some had normal dark colors and you could tell the females from the males. my water is great, so dont know of anything that could be causing the color fading, sometimes they get darker but go back to being lighter. any help? does it take a while for the color to really come in from when they are babyes? the biggest one is just under 2 inches.