(aka: Red Fin Compressiceps)
We started out with 7 of them @ 2" or so last October. We were planning on getting at least a single breeding pair (if we were lucky...they were far to small to vent) and the rest, would be put into our large display tank once they got bigger/old enough to deal with the bigger fishes in said tank.
So far, we've been growing them out in our 36 gallon grow out tank ever since. In the first few months, we lost two of them.....it happens.
Of the remaining 5, I could clearly see that one was a female, due to her being considerably smaller than the other 4. I had already picked out the best looking male from the remaining group, but wanted to see which fish would pair off with the female first.
Last weekend was our monthly Aquarium Society meeting and auction, as such, we removed some of the other species of fry/grow outs from the tank and auctioned them off, which opened up the tank a lot more, plus we re-arranged the decorations etc.
Anyway, all was going well (or so I thought) until I came home yesterday. All the other fish in the tank were perfectly fine, but I could only see two comps....one was female, and the other was a male....the male I had picked out as being the best (best colour, best attitude....etc) and the rest were out of sight.
Once my wife got home (we're partners in this...so if I did this before she got home.....hell to pay!! lol), we started intensively looking around, lifting decorations, etc. We found the other males. Two were at opposite ends of the tank from each other, and the 3rd was in the middle under a rock! All DOA.
I suspect:
The male that I like became the most dominant, and killed off all the other males, securing his female.
Anyway, so long as it's not the female killing off all the males....I'll be happy! We now have what we suspect will be our breeding pair (would have prefered a trio, but I guess we didn't have many females in the origional group...maybe they were the first few casualties...dunno) and I don't have to worry about what to do with the other males....(they were kinda ugly, their mouths were "stuck" open anyway, so I couldn't really sell them to anyone)
Anyway....just wanted to share!
Thanks for looking!
J
We started out with 7 of them @ 2" or so last October. We were planning on getting at least a single breeding pair (if we were lucky...they were far to small to vent) and the rest, would be put into our large display tank once they got bigger/old enough to deal with the bigger fishes in said tank.
So far, we've been growing them out in our 36 gallon grow out tank ever since. In the first few months, we lost two of them.....it happens.
Of the remaining 5, I could clearly see that one was a female, due to her being considerably smaller than the other 4. I had already picked out the best looking male from the remaining group, but wanted to see which fish would pair off with the female first.
Last weekend was our monthly Aquarium Society meeting and auction, as such, we removed some of the other species of fry/grow outs from the tank and auctioned them off, which opened up the tank a lot more, plus we re-arranged the decorations etc.
Anyway, all was going well (or so I thought) until I came home yesterday. All the other fish in the tank were perfectly fine, but I could only see two comps....one was female, and the other was a male....the male I had picked out as being the best (best colour, best attitude....etc) and the rest were out of sight.
Once my wife got home (we're partners in this...so if I did this before she got home.....hell to pay!! lol), we started intensively looking around, lifting decorations, etc. We found the other males. Two were at opposite ends of the tank from each other, and the 3rd was in the middle under a rock! All DOA.
I suspect:
The male that I like became the most dominant, and killed off all the other males, securing his female.
Anyway, so long as it's not the female killing off all the males....I'll be happy! We now have what we suspect will be our breeding pair (would have prefered a trio, but I guess we didn't have many females in the origional group...maybe they were the first few casualties...dunno) and I don't have to worry about what to do with the other males....(they were kinda ugly, their mouths were "stuck" open anyway, so I couldn't really sell them to anyone)
Anyway....just wanted to share!
Thanks for looking!
J
