Broken Pair Bond?

aj2494

aj2494

R.I.P. Guys
Jul 31, 2008
846
0
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Buffalo, New York
I've had these fish for a while. They are the oblongum pair in my avatar. I bought them as an established pair. A week after I got them, some eggs popped up, and I waited for them to hatch. They hatched out, everything fine. Now comes the bad part. I stripped the fry. They all died, and the parents got mad at each other. Over the next few days, the aggression between the parents escalated (aimed entirely at the female). The female's fins were getting damaged, so I put some pvc pipe in there for her to hide in. In a few days, she found it. From that point on, on the very, very rare occasion she came out (other than to eat), she was huddled in a corner somewhere, until she made a break back to the pipe. This went on for a few weeks, and I got sick of only seeing the male. I pulled the pipe out. At, first, it wasn't too bad. Within a week, her fins were torn, and she had missing scales. This was about two days ago. The pipe is now back in the tank.

There was never any aggression between them before this, and the male never goes after any of the other fish in the tank. I am doing as much as I can to shake things up in that tank.

Does this seem like a broken pair bond? If it is, can a form the bond again? If the bond might still be there, is there a way to help them out? My one suspicion might be that she hasn't developed eggs yet, but it's been so long since she last laid eggs (that I know of).

Please help me out.
 
The male is ready to spawn again and she isn't. You most likely pulled the fry too soon. I'd suggest you put a divider in the tank, so that they can see each other, but he can't get at her.
 
Sadly, Pete, these guys died from an infection.
 
Oh, gosh. Both of them died? :( That's really really unfortunate. They were such beautiful fish....
 
They are extremely hard to find. Toddnbecka has some for sale from the same parents as these were from. They were australoheros oblongum. If you google them, the first few pictures are of the parents. I miss them a lot.

Here are some others toddnbecka has. http://aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=216803
 
I had a trio of these
ceibal_centurion4.jpg
Australoheros n. sp. red ceibal "Centurion". The pair would torment the second female, but she made a good dither. I made the mistake of moving her to my 210 after the last time the pair spawned to see if I could get them to take care of fry. They ate them after one week free swimming every time.

I moved the pair from the 90 to my 10 gallon rack to see if they'd spawn with the intent of moving them to the next 10 gallon and so on to have all 8 10 gallons full of fry. He killed her shortly after. My friend is supposed to get me another female or two. Great fish; Australoheros sp. is as you well know.
 
Yeah, oblongum aren't nearly as aggressive as ceibals. I shied away from them for that reason.
 
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