yellow there, my 110g has 3 full grown severums (between id say 5-7 inches roughly, hard to say) with a krib, a pleco, and 2 blue gouramis.
in a 30g tank I have a juvie severum thats only about 3.5-4 inches long, including his tail. He has very recently decided to nip at ALL of my pygmy chain swords. theres maybe 4 main little tufts of the chain sword, and every time a runner forms he pecks at it, and it dies. even if i bury it so just the little green shoots are barely showing, he digs it up. He has even started digging up the whole tufts, only once so far though.
id like to move him to the 110g so my pygmy chain sword can overcome the shock and start spreading again like in my 5g and 10g, but im afraid the big sevs will bully him. what do you all think?
I would say give it a shot when you have a chance to really watch the behavior. Severums are big but have small mouths and don't usually eat smaller fish. They also are one of the most peaceful cichlids. If your bigger ones are rowdy you might want to try rearranging some of the decor before you add the little guy.
first I completely rearranged the decor and acclimated him to my 110g, over a couple hours and plopped him in. he did great! I sat there for over an hour, he even interacted with the other fish in the tank little bits here and there, but for the most part they didnt even acknowledge him much.
sooo I played on my computer for an hour. went back to check on him, and again he was mostly hiding behind some driftwood, but no problems.
I laid down, and about 30 mins later I looked over and he was missing! I found him under some fake plants laying on his side. I quickly scooped him up and put him back in his 29g. He had damage to his nose around his mouth, his right (i think its his) pectoral fin, tail fin, most of his right side, and his one remaining good eye
fortunately hes eating again and his eye has returned to its normal red color, and the damage to his body is starting to fade. actually for all tense and purposes hes perfectly fine, but man what a bummer. I thought he was going to lose his eye if not die, but neither has happened.
NOW i need to decide if im going to try again when hes bigger or say screw it and get a 55g :\
That's terrible! Are you sure it was the severums that did it? I know some pretty mean kribs. I think you could grow him out to 4-5 inches easy in the 29g and then give it another shot.
honestly I have no clue who did it. some of the marks on him looked way too big to be anything but my big severum... but who knows. The krib had a violent past but since ive had him Ive never seen him so much as shoot a dirty glance.
youre right though, im just going to have to wait till hes bigger and try again. the downside, my red ludwigia and pygmy chainsword probably wont last that long lol maybe I need to set up my 20L for him :\
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
Tropical Fish Keeping
597.8K posts
83.7K members
Since 2006
forum community dedicated to tropical fish owners and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about species,breeding, health, behavior, aquariums, adopting, care, classifieds, and more! Open to fish, plants and reptiles living in freshwater or saltwater environments.