Emergency -- Female Con Nearly Killed By Mate

[bluetrane2028]

My mated pair of Cons don't do it right... they make babies like normal, and then after a week or so, all the babies disappear, and the male starts terrorizing the female. I'm thinking of adding a second female to try and divert his attention...

I don't exactly have a hospital tank right now, the female Con is in a 5 gallon bucket with a Fluval Plus 1 internal filter and her favorite rock ornament. Her fins are nearly gone and she isn't showing many signs of life (just kind of sits there). I put in some stress coat to try to speed along fin recovery, but I'm not entirely sure she'll make it.

If anyone has insight into this mess, I would appreciate it.

 

[CamaroGurl]

My mated pair of Cons don't do it right... they make babies like normal, and then after a week or so, all the babies disappear, and the male starts terrorizing the female. I'm thinking of adding a second female to try and divert his attention...

I don't exactly have a hospital tank right now, the female Con is in a 5 gallon bucket with a Fluval Plus 1 internal filter and her favorite rock ornament. Her fins are nearly gone and she isn't showing many signs of life (just kind of sits there). I put in some stress coat to try to speed along fin recovery, but I'm not entirely sure she'll make it.

If anyone has insight into this mess, I would appreciate it.

I know nothing that will help, but I'm hoping for a full recovery for your fish.

 

[kribensis12]

I would keep her seperate, and add something that cures cuts for fish. I would add a cmobonation of Melafix and Prima fix,m she should make it, my cons were always tuff as nails ( a pair de-scaled anotehr convict and he lived 2 days with no scales!

 

[bluetrane2028]

She started to look a bit better, so I put her back in the tank. Five minutes later, he was chasing her like I've never seen... trying desperately to kill her it seems. I put her back in the bucket, I'll be purchasing a divider...

 

[ox5477]

buying another con would only be trouble. Either the male would pair up with the new female and kill the old one, or the new female would get killed by the pair.

Sorry to hear this happened, but just like in human relationships, things can be going so great then all of a sudden things just go drastically down hill. You don't hear too much about this with cichlids as usually once their mated, they are inseperable for the rest of their lives, but this can be a good learning tool for some newer members of TFF who want to keep and breed cichlids. Always be ready with an extra tank, whether the fish are mated or not...

Really sorry this has happened, but hopefully she will make a speedy recovery and they will both live happy and healthy lives

 

[Sheilaf]

Do you have a lot of hiding places in your tank? Any dithers? I had a similar problem when I got my C.cutteri (very similar to convicts, just as crazy). The male was constantly harssing the female. I removed him, re-decorated the tank with lots of hiding places and threw in some tetras as dithers. I left her in the tank for a few days by herself so she could get comfortable and claim the tank as hers, then I put him in. I had no problems after that. That being said, I do have a divider handy just in case. You really never know with central americans, they can be very hard on each other. It seems they behave better when you get 6 individuals and let them chose their own mates rather than just tossing a male and female together. My C.sajica chose each other and are an excellent couple.

Hope your female recovers well.

 

[bluetrane2028]

Do you have a lot of hiding places in your tank? Any dithers? I had a similar problem when I got my C.cutteri (very similar to convicts, just as crazy). The male was constantly harssing the female. I removed him, re-decorated the tank with lots of hiding places and threw in some tetras as dithers. I left her in the tank for a few days by herself so she could get comfortable and claim the tank as hers, then I put him in. I had no problems after that. That being said, I do have a divider handy just in case. You really never know with central americans, they can be very hard on each other. It seems they behave better when you get 6 individuals and let them chose their own mates rather than just tossing a male and female together. My C.sajica chose each other and are an excellent couple.

Hope your female recovers well.

I put in the divider, and she's recovering slowly. The tank is only 29US gallons, they would probably kill any dithers. As for the selection of this pair, I originally started with THIRTEEN convicts, and this pair formed first. There was no randomly throwing two fish at each other. I think part of the problem is that she's about half his size. He decides to bully her, she can't do much about it. I'm going to let them be separate for the forseeable future, and hopefully she'll catch up somewhat in size.

Thanks for everyone's support, these Cons have been an interesting experience at the least.