Hello, I recently acquired these two Festae which are currently divided in a 200G tank going through quarantine (they will remain in this tank for a while).
The festae in the first 4 photos I was told was a female, which is what I believe due to the half black dorsal and the lack of spangling. I have had "her" for 7 days and she has been in the tank for 6 days. Her colours seem to be quite washed out. She is around 6.5 - 7 inches if I had to guess. The 4th photo is of her a while after the tank lights have turned off.
The 5th photo shows both of them up at the divider.
The last 2 photos are of a male that I have had for 16 days and he has also been in the tank for 6 days. He is around 5.5-6 inches and is much less "bulky" then she is.
He shows signs of wanting to breed with herald his tube is down, however she shows no interest in him, which I am guessing is due to him being smaller then her. She is also much shyer then he is and seems to be more skittish which is am guessing comes from her previous tank having lots of fish in it and being quite high off the ground where human traffic was minimal.
Both of them feed well, although once I place the food in the tank it does to some time (around 5 or so minutes before they are comfortable to come out of hiding and eat it)
Now that the back story is out of the way I wanted to ask:
1. Could anyone confirm that she is indeed a female?
2. Would some sort of dither fish work for helping them to settle in and being less skittish as well as their colours coming out more? I ask as for my festae grow outs I currently have in a 75G they were very shy but as soon as I added some dithers they instantly became less shy, were hiding much less and were ravenously feeding. I currently use Giant Danios and Buenos Aires Tetras with my Festae grow outs which do perfectly fine, however I worry these would be eaten but the larger Festae
3. If yes, what would be some good dithers, that wouldn't be killed easily? I would prefer fish that do not nip fins as I cannot stand when fish have nipped fins. I did at the beginning have a group of 8 small silver dollars in with them but she took a decent chunk out of one of them, so I moved them too another tank. I would prefer if the dithers were not a cichlid?
I have used larger silver dollars before with a large pair of jaguar cichlids and they didn't seem to even phase the managuensis, which was surprising that the festae took a chunk out of one. I am guessing possibly as the silver dollars where a decent bit smaller then the Festae.
Apologies for the not so great quality photos, the fishes colours are slightly different in real life, an iPhone camera mixed with LED lighting doesn't make a great combination. As well as the algae in the photos.
All the information is greatly appreciated, sorry for the wall of text as well.
The festae in the first 4 photos I was told was a female, which is what I believe due to the half black dorsal and the lack of spangling. I have had "her" for 7 days and she has been in the tank for 6 days. Her colours seem to be quite washed out. She is around 6.5 - 7 inches if I had to guess. The 4th photo is of her a while after the tank lights have turned off.
The 5th photo shows both of them up at the divider.
The last 2 photos are of a male that I have had for 16 days and he has also been in the tank for 6 days. He is around 5.5-6 inches and is much less "bulky" then she is.
He shows signs of wanting to breed with herald his tube is down, however she shows no interest in him, which I am guessing is due to him being smaller then her. She is also much shyer then he is and seems to be more skittish which is am guessing comes from her previous tank having lots of fish in it and being quite high off the ground where human traffic was minimal.
Both of them feed well, although once I place the food in the tank it does to some time (around 5 or so minutes before they are comfortable to come out of hiding and eat it)
Now that the back story is out of the way I wanted to ask:
1. Could anyone confirm that she is indeed a female?
2. Would some sort of dither fish work for helping them to settle in and being less skittish as well as their colours coming out more? I ask as for my festae grow outs I currently have in a 75G they were very shy but as soon as I added some dithers they instantly became less shy, were hiding much less and were ravenously feeding. I currently use Giant Danios and Buenos Aires Tetras with my Festae grow outs which do perfectly fine, however I worry these would be eaten but the larger Festae
3. If yes, what would be some good dithers, that wouldn't be killed easily? I would prefer fish that do not nip fins as I cannot stand when fish have nipped fins. I did at the beginning have a group of 8 small silver dollars in with them but she took a decent chunk out of one of them, so I moved them too another tank. I would prefer if the dithers were not a cichlid?
I have used larger silver dollars before with a large pair of jaguar cichlids and they didn't seem to even phase the managuensis, which was surprising that the festae took a chunk out of one. I am guessing possibly as the silver dollars where a decent bit smaller then the Festae.
Apologies for the not so great quality photos, the fishes colours are slightly different in real life, an iPhone camera mixed with LED lighting doesn't make a great combination. As well as the algae in the photos.
All the information is greatly appreciated, sorry for the wall of text as well.
