Females fighting

Hi,

Thanks for a good site with good information!

I have a big tank at 1.2m x 5m. I just started it 10 days ago, and Im a pretty experience in aquarium since before but just not bristlenoses. I bought 5 ancistrus 1xmale 3xfemales and 1 youngster they go on there own with just 4 small guppies (my gf's fishes ). Im not sure if they have breed before or not. Bought them from a local private breeder.

Anyways, at the moment its total chaos in the tank, the females is fighting wich looks like picking order fights its usally the two biggest ones, is this normal? I havent read any text about females fighting like that, they can go on for 20minutes. They where pretty thin when I got them but im trying to feed them up without crashing the water.

And also my females are what looks to me like very flirtatious with the male. They swim to the male and show off themself. However my male just gets mad and chase them off. I think one female might be gravid but as said the male is not intrested. Any thoughts?

Sorry for my big wall of text and my language Im from Sweden

Best regards!

Hey Pontus and welcome to bristlenose world

You are not kidding about it being a big tank. 5m long I so want to see some pictures of it!

In regards to the females fighting it can be a common thing if there is not enough places for them to hide. Mature bristlenose, even females, will get very territorial if there is only one or two places to hide. The other thing is that they are indeed gravid and trying to decide on a dominance order in the tank and who gets to mate with the male first.

My only other thought is that they might not be getting enough food, or they might be fighting over the same food supply. what and how do you feed them?

Doug wrote:

Hey Pontus and welcome to bristlenose world

You are not kidding about it being a big tank. 5m long I so want to see some pictures of it!

In regards to the females fighting it can be a common thing if there is not enough places for them to hide. Mature bristlenose, even females, will get very territorial if there is only one or two places to hide. The other thing is that they are indeed gravid and trying to decide on a dominance order in the tank and who gets to mate with the male first.

My only other thought is that they might not be getting enough food, or they might be fighting over the same food supply. what and how do you feed them?

Thanks for the quick input! Tank is 120cmx50cm haha I belive I have plenty of hiding spots: two coconut caves, two clay pots and 2 roots. Its correct that they mostly fight about food, but that 20minute fight was not about food. However it seems the picking order is set now, since the female that won the big fight is chasing off the other one. But its abit annoying to see that they dont share food. If male is out he takes all, he might if very full let the bigges fmale have some. If the male isnt out the big female dont let anyone eat at the same time as she. I feed them 2 walfers in smaller pieces so everyone can have a bite and then every third day I give them zucchini. They where very thin around there belly when I got them, but I cant give them so much food atm since the water is just 12 days old. I havent even had my nitrite spike yet.

Yesterday my male accepted the big female(3minutes after lights-out) when she was waving her private parts in his face think it suprised her cause she got nervous and swam away and he chased here. But after that they just started doing there daily nightly stuff, random cleaning of windows I might just need to be patienced

Another fun thing, some days ago the male was over(!) the water level, climbing in the stream om water running on the back glass from my filter, is that normal lol?

Since I got such huge response! I decided to put up some pictures of my gang!

They all have very diffrent coloration as you can see, first image is my male eating wafer:



And here is my largest female with my youngster



And last my two smaller females and the youngster. Pretty huge diffrence in coloration

the colour difference is common. It can be because of many things. Diet, stress, previous tank colour etc. As long as they are healthy and swiming around then there is nothing to worry about

The colouring has many reasons, but when they're patchy it tends to mean they're under a little bit of stress, but as you've said everything's new so give them time, they'll settle down and claim their territories. Females can often fight over various things. Occasionally my large albino female has an argument with a smaller common female and I have seen them have an all out war before and the bigger usually wins, with the small one scooting off to mope a bit. These are normal, and once everything settles you're group should calm down quite a bit and fights should be rare.
I could suggest you add a bit more stuff to your tank, like more wood, some rocks to make caves, some plants, just because it looks like there's too much floor and in the chaos one bristlenose will see the other and charge. Other than that your tank is coming along nicely. Keep an eye on it and you'll be fine

Don't forget to keep us up to date on your tank. We all love to see the pictures too!

Silvashadow wrote:

The colouring has many reasons, but when they're patchy it tends to mean they're under a little bit of stress, but as you've said everything's new so give them time, they'll settle down and claim their territories. Females can often fight over various things. Occasionally my large albino female has an argument with a smaller common female and I have seen them have an all out war before and the bigger usually wins, with the small one scooting off to mope a bit. These are normal, and once everything settles you're group should calm down quite a bit and fights should be rare.
I could suggest you add a bit more stuff to your tank, like more wood, some rocks to make caves, some plants, just because it looks like there's too much floor and in the chaos one bristlenose will see the other and charge. Other than that your tank is coming along nicely. Keep an eye on it and you'll be fine

Don't forget to keep us up to date on your tank. We all love to see the pictures too!

Thanks for the answer Yes hopefully everything will settle done smootle, its day 12 today for the fish.

Oki so tomorrow I will get alot of plants, so I had to put in more sand for them to be able to root. And after I did It was alot activity with the male choosing a spot under one of my roots instead of his old one. And after this and some food, the two females where at it again.

Let me present gangster-black vs gangster-white going at it with there small "thorns" out..:
(I cant post youtube links. what the hell? ) youtube.com/watch?v=NREy3kRu2aw

Oh and black female won. Lets hope they settle more down tomorrow with all the plants im getting.. btw I bought your book to doug great work

Thanks mate, Hope it helps out

How did you gut that coconut without cutting it in half?

Just a comment, you have a faboulous looking tank. It goes to show one can make a tank look ugly by adding to much stuff.
Also so clean, really good work.
Marty

Hi sorry for the delay, have been abit busy and also got my nitrite spike.. Have been changing alot of water and it seems under control now

So what has happend?

I have planted the tank with vallisneria in the back, looks good! However the ancistrus have been digging them up quick abit. It was because they where trying to eat the base of the plant while I was giving them a food break cause of the nitrite. So its an ongoing battle to get the roots to settled vs ancistrus digging them up I will post some good full tank pictures when half the plants isnt in the surface..

Anyways this thursday the male finally settled for the smallest coconut cave and started chasing people away from it. And the females pretty much started to show intrestest yesterday. One of the smalest females seemed abit unexperienced since she went into the cave with the male without any intrest of laying eggs He was really rough with her when he was trying to keep her inside. She managed to escape and not much more happend, so i went to bed.

And this morning . I could not get the camera to really show the details of the sand but i think you can see:


It seem the coconut is abit unstable, cause he or them has moved it 180 degrees and moved 4 cm of sand beneath it and the surronding.

Anyways so I used a flash light to see inside and on the ground of the cave where the sand is are 4-5 eggs completly coverd in sand...

So I dont know if there is any eggs in the top of the cave since if I move it and look inside the eggs on the bottom will probably be lost in the sand.

What should I do? The cave is also in sucha bad position the male has problem getting in and out. Should I move the cave and also look at the top? Sacrificing the sand coverd eggs. Maybe they are allready screwed since they dont get much ventilation?

ktk05 wrote:

How did you gut that coconut without cutting it in half?

Hi, it was very simple. I saw off 10% of the flattest side, my gf helped me hold it stil. Then cut off the top with that black area. Was easy and good result!

marty14 wrote:

Just a comment, you have a faboulous looking tank. It goes to show one can make a tank look ugly by adding to much stuff.
Also so clean, really good work.
Marty

Thank you I will get better when the plants settled in, but will still be abit minimalistic since thats my taste

Pontus wrote:

ktk05 wrote:

How did you gut that coconut without cutting it in half?

Hi, it was very simple. I saw off 10% of the flattest side, my gf helped me hold it stil. Then cut off the top with that black area. Was easy and good result!

marty14 wrote:

Just a comment, you have a faboulous looking tank. It goes to show one can make a tank look ugly by adding to much stuff.
Also so clean, really good work.
Marty

Thank you I will get better when the plants settled in, but will still be abit minimalistic since thats my taste

I think the minimalist look with the light coloured sand makes it look really good. Just has a great purity about it.
Keep up the great work.
Marty

Ok, so I was a naughty boy and looked inside the coconut, And he has batch of eggs in the roof to yaaay

Not many maybe just 20 but still super great, im guessing it wasent my biggest female since she is still very active and not thin. But my light skinned one is slow and thin so guess its her's. I just changed water, by a misstake I raised water temperature with 3 degres Will it effec the eggs?

Update: Now my big female also wanna play, she's trying to force herself inside the cave, but big poppa is not giving in and chasing her away

Congrats on your batch of eggs mate! What happened to the sanded eggs?

Three degrees shouldn't affect the eggs, I've had the water change in temp like that before many times with eggs and they still hatch fine. It's the babies that aren't as strong for changes in temp.

Your other female will eventually squeeze herself in there, and once she is, he won't let her out, then you'll have eggs galore! Goodluck

Silvashadow wrote:

Congrats on your batch of eggs mate! What happened to the sanded eggs?

Three degrees shouldn't affect the eggs, I've had the water change in temp like that before many times with eggs and they still hatch fine. It's the babies that aren't as strong for changes in temp.

Your other female will eventually squeeze herself in there, and once she is, he won't let her out, then you'll have eggs galore! Goodluck

Thanks mate!

Two eggs are outside the cave just laying there. And then theres like 6-7 ones on the sand in the coconut, they dont get much attention and is coverd in sand so I doubt they live. Tough I have an ozon machines keeping the water at maximum oxygen level so who knows.

I hope he doesnt let in the big female haha, i think the old eggs would get destroyed since its very small cave. Good to hear that the temperature diffrence isnt dangerous

If you want to rescue the eggs, pop them back into his cave, his fanning might keep the loose ones alive, or just pop 'em in a makeshift egg tumbler.

You're gonna have little wrigglers soon. YAY

Silvashadow wrote:

If you want to rescue the eggs, pop them back into his cave, his fanning might keep the loose ones alive, or just pop 'em in a makeshift egg tumbler.

You're gonna have little wrigglers soon. YAY

Yeaah but I rly dont wanna stress the male to much, and I dont have anything to put the eggs in. Here's a picture of them laying on the floor of the cocanut cave. Who knows maybe they will hatch to but I doubt.What do you guys think?

Give me more feedback

male is taking care of his eggs, but he is out eating whenever there is food in the tank. And he stays to eat quite long, not at all like the experience i've read from other people.

Oh well maybes its because he doesnt have any other species to worry about If the 5 days rule is correct for me they will hatch night to thursday

Pontus wrote:

Give me more feedback

male is taking care of his eggs, but he is out eating whenever there is food in the tank. And he stays to eat quite long, not at all like the experience i've read from other people.

Oh well maybes its because he doesnt have any other species to worry about If the 5 days rule is correct for me they will hatch night to thursday

I don't think you need to worry.
Looking forward to seeing the fry.
Marty

I saw one hatched fry today. It was outside the cave and got eaten by one of the females

The eggs inside the cave on the sand was not hatched. But maybe the ones in the cave are. Im gonna try to be patience, when might I see them for the first them?

Pontus wrote:

I saw one hatch fry today. It was outside the cave and got eaten by one of the females

The eggs inside the cave on the sand was not hatched. But maybe the ones in the cave are. Im gonna try to be patience, when might I see them for the first them?

All the best of luck.
I am keeping my fingers crossed for you.
Marty

Hey again!

Looked into the cave this morning and this is what I saw:


If u look closely you can see one fry at the left side that is getting dark. I think the rest is in the cave roof

It looks like they dont have much sack left.

What should I do now?! I dont want them to starve.

Hi,

3-4 of them have escaped and are around in the tank. There about 1cm long and looks like adult ones. However I dont know if they will be eaten up by the other bristlenose or the guppies. Or starving?

The rest is inside the cave, I dont think it's so many, dont know really since I cant lift the cave now without some falling out. Im getting my grow up tank in two days. But Im not sure I will be able to catch them then

If anyone has any ideas, I would be grateful

Pictures will come later this day

Here's the promised picture. Could only get one good picture since they are abit hard to catch:



They are 7 days since hatch and still this devoleped. I guess it has to do with my high temperature at 28-29celcius.