electric blue jack dempsey help

My largest EB Dempsey is the shyest fish. I am worried about him as well. I have him in my breading tank and he is acting like yours. He is in with 2 common females both that are about 3 inches. I would guess the male is around 4 1/2 inches. He comes out to eat and is the most agressive eater in the tank. They are in a 46 bowfront. I know the tank is small. I'm looking to upgrade however he was alway a shy fish and hid. I have to be conserned about your fish not eating. I also am intrested in some feedback on your thread.

I also have 7 2in EBs in a 45 gal. I bought them for Jeff Rapps. I'm holding them for a time to get some pairs with commons then selling the rest off. This is a good envestment because they will be worth even more when bigger. Oh, My point is they are all happy agressive fish lke your was. I will know soon enough if they all turn out to be cowards.

Doese anyone have experience with bow fonts. Doese the bow magniphy our images and scare the fish?

First question, how big is he? I have some experience with them, but I want to caution you that I'm certainly no expert. I've had four and two have died in the past for reasons I can't begin to identify. They simply stopped eating (actually one NEVER ate that I could see) and stayed in one place until they died. There were no obvious signs of any problem. They were also BOTH about 2-2.5" at the time. The two that remain with me now are about 4.5" and 4". I have heard in the past that others have found that they are vulnerable when they are small and that if they get beyond 3" they seem to be as hardy as any other fish. Hence my question about size. If over 3", I would say that you should treat as if it has some internal problem - infection, parasite, etc. Good luck, they ARE beautiful fish and it kills me to lose one!

Yea that is probably genetic... I had an eb for about a month or so and it ate like a pig for about 3 weeks and then it just stopped and got real shy like... No new tankmates or anything out of the norm... Needless to say that fish is in fishy heaven... Dont know what happened???

Well, as I said, I lost the very first one I bought, and one of the three I bought later (my whole idea was to maybe get ONE to live out of the three, so I'm ahead of the game). All of the fish I bought came from Jeff Rapps, so quality wasn't a factor, and the price was reasonable - Clearly some of the prices being asked for around the country make buying three to end up with one not particularly appealing! I also kept the last three together in the same tank with no other cichlids to hedge my bets as much as possible.