amgbac09

I have a male kribensis that I got several days ago for my 30 gal tank. He has already picked out his territory in a pot in the side of the tank. He is housed with 5 tiger barbs and 3 corys. He pesters the larger Cory about feeding time but that is abut it.

Will my krib need a female to keep him happy? I have been wanting a female to see how they act but I also worry about my Corys. I wouldn't like anything bad to happen to them. Will I be best to leave the female out of the equation or not.

Also, my krib is about 2" long, maybe a little more. He was the last krib in the fish store and the only other store in the area only has kribs that are about 1" long. If I get a much smaller female, will my krib stress the young female to death or am I just worrying too much? Even though I have done a lot of reading about these fish, this is my first experience with territorial and aggressive fish and are not sure what to expect.

wot_fan

Hi and welcome

I am not an expert on kribs, far from it. I can tell what I have observed in my tank though. My LFS only had large males and small females when I purchased a pair last Thursday. They were both pretty timid the first couple of days in the tank. They allowed my male GBR to chase them. In fact, I was a little worried about the small female krib. Then the male krib seemed to get comfortable an became the most dominate fish in the tank in a big way. He has pretty much taken possession of half of the bottom of my 38G.

The female being much smaller than the male doesn't seem to be a problem. He isn't aggressive towards her. He does show off a lot though . I just posted a video of my tank and there are a couple of shots of my pair of you are interested in seeing the size difference.

Basically, I can't say what fish will be safe with a pair of kribs in the tank. I can tell you that having a smaller female shouldn't be a problem and expect more aggression out of the male if there is a female around. I am sure someone else will be along shortly that can answer your questions .

Good luck.

13devin

You always want to have a female that is smaller then the male. If she is bigger then the male she actually pester it until it dies of stress. Also with having a krib pair they will most likely chase the other fish especially during breeding season. Usually when you have other fish in a tank with a krib pair you'd want them to be faster then the kribs. I have 2 phantom tetra in with my pair and my kribs sometimes chase them but they never get close enough to actually do any damage.