Firemouth Too Aggressive.

[DirtyHarry]

I recently purchased a male firemouth, a little more than 3 inches, hes been showing a lot of a aggression attacking my blood parrots. I introduced what I thought was a female firemouth and she was getting beaten up by the male instantly. I have the male quarantined with a tank divider, all the other fish are stress free now. Is there anything I can do to decrease aggression or will I just have to return the firemouth? Still new to cichlids, any help appreciated.

 

[diademhill]

I recently purchased a male firemouth, a little more than 3 inches, hes been showing a lot of a aggression attacking my blood parrots. I introduced what I thought was a female firemouth and she was getting beaten up by the male instantly. I have the male quarantined with a tank divider, all the other fish are stress free now. Is there anything I can do to decrease aggression or will I just have to return the firemouth? Still new to cichlids, any help appreciated.

Firemouths aren't usually too bolshy but it depends on the space they have & individual temperaments. It is possible if a shop has a lone one that it is a delinquent from someone else's tank.
How big is your tank? What is the decor?

 

[DirtyHarry]

I have a 55 gallon decored with rocks, a fake driftwood, and 3 background plastic plants. Maybe not enough space? I figured it's enough being as this firemouth is still small.

 

[kubora666]

should be yes
i think you need to give them some time to get used to eachover using the old tank divider trick.
i have 2 firemouths still small that were bort as male and female, the male nearly killed the female and tormented her for weeks, and now they are best friends and may even spawn as they mature, firemouths are like that as ive had them before, tank divide them, or just give lots of caves and hide aways for the female to retire to then she can relieve some of the stress, eventually they will get on . i would give it some time before you take one back as they are a lovely and interesting fish to have

 

[DirtyHarry]

Ok, the male seems to be calming down now that hes been seperated in the corner of the tank for a couple days. The female is getting along with the blood parrots so far. I'd hate to get rid of the firemouths, really nice looking fish. I'll let the male out after awhile and see what happens.

 

[DirtyHarry]

I let the male out the other day and everything seemed fine. Now he's back to attacking the female constantly also attacking the blood parrots. Sometimes the parrots will fight back so I'm not too worried about them other than they are stressed. Should I wait it out? I heard these fish calm down as they mature. Or should I take the firemouth back or try the tank divider again?

 

[mitcheese]

i had this problem with firemouths once, the male wound up killing the female. id try the tank divider one more time and if it didnt work i'd take the male back.

 

[DirtyHarry]

My male firemouth still harasses the female, but to a less extent now. Sometimes I'll see the male come up to the female and they will start moving in a backwords motion with tails touching, after a few seconds he attacks her again. She usually finds a place to hide and my blood parrots are starting to put the male firemouth in his place, I'm guessing because they are growing larger. So I'll probably just wait it out. Maybe they can find a happy medium.

 

[beechey]

mine always fights at feeding time never harasses any other fish thou.

 

[DirtyHarry]

When I thought my firemouth was improving he has only gotten worse. He has already grown considerably larger than the other fish and now constantly attacks my blood parrots and even catfish. I hate to get rid of this guy, best looking fish I've owned.

 

[beechey]

how big is your firemouth??

 

[DirtyHarry]

About 3.5 inches.

 

[kubora666]

i think you should know that, i got a apir of them at 1"
they fought all the time and one was very small and weak and always attacked, ffort he was gonna die, i just left hi min tehre, he had several little hide aways, and out of the blue they became beest friends and now are same size and are always following eachover, its a massive improvement and i just think this is very typical behaviour of a firemouth, it MUST get better,
i wouldnt get rid of him if hes very colourfull , you will regret it,
could you possibly post a piocture of each one so i can see how much bigger he is and how battered the otehr one is? then i can have an idea of what you could do

 

[DirtyHarry]

Here is the aggressive firemouth, I'm guessing male.

The firemouth getting attacked, I'm guessing female, barely any red.

Female starting to get chased.

Pics arent great, but hope that gives a little more info.

 

[DirtyHarry]

Getting some new behavior with my firemouths. First off, not sure if I made it clear that I don't know for sure if I have 2 males or a male and a female. The larger more aggressive one I'm certain is male. Anyways just recently, the smaller one that usually gets attacked actually came up to the larger firemouth and they've been doing this kind of swimming side to side thing with mouths wide open and gills flared. After about a minute of this behavior the larger firemouth will chase the smaller one away as usual giving a few bites to the head or fins. Ive noticed there is less aggression and more of this behavior now. Could it just be 2 males challenging and the smaller one is getting brave or is this courting between male and female? But why would the male feel the need to attack the female afterwords if they really are breeding??