Fishkeeping is never dull. One minute everything is fine and the next its a mess.
So now Bobo the choc is now out of the 225 permanently. He was always the third wheel cichlid and it only got worse once my previous severum Chip was out of the picture. He got larger and tried the Oscar. Biggest mistake ever. It was a one sided war that would improve then regress. I admit being lulled to sleep because there was no fighting, and the chocolate ate normally and shoaled the whole tank. Reality is in the last two or three months he's had increased incidents of a split tail. The busted lip thing with the parrot was constantly off and on. I would 'spy' on the tank late and didn't see aggression. But something was clearly happening so the cycle had to be broken. I kept the backup tank for this reason...I guess I just hoped that it would eventually work but cichlids have other ideas.
So now Bobo erupted two white tubular growths near his eye. Then individual spots on his other side last night. Its posted in the disease section what's going on now. This fish is just too prone to stress related disease. Its chronic and frustrating...you look at him and he's a massive chocolate. But his immune system sucks.
The effect on the main tank is interesting. While Bobo struggles alone with another round of illness, the Oscar seems more relaxed and consistently playful. The parrot doesn't tolerate the severum and acaras in his area, but other centrals (rainbow, hrp) and the Oscar are ok. The severum and rainbow are kind of nomads but there's plenty of room. The synos are out and about more instead of hiding in the large log. The acaras are mischevious and try to start trouble but have no hardware to back it up. Case in point:
This morning I'm checking on everybody. Rocky and Jazz go completely across the tank to start trouble with Boss. Rocky, the more aggressive acara, decides to charge at Boss and lip lock. Let's just say Boss wasn't impressed. He caught the acara on the lip and sent him flying. Then both acaras tried jumping the parrot. That didn't work either...Boss nailed them both. Then Corn goes over there, challenging Rocky. They juke and flare. Jazz moves off and leaves Rocky to it. Pepper the rainbow enters the scene and chases Rocky off. Then Corn chases Pepper! It's the keystone cops...all you need is the fast organ music.