Aggressive Female Kribensis

HI all,

I have two female Kribensis, a rainbow shark and a bristle nose pleco in my 60 gallon aquarium. I recently added two large angels and one of my female Kribensis cichlids keeps trying to nip at their fins. I never had any previous aggression problems with my Kribensis and oddly the one which chases the Angels is the one who gets chased by my other female Kribensis. Any idea why she is being so aggressive?

 

They could just be trying assert the ranks in the tank. I had my largest shell dweller nipping at my pleco whos 2/3 times bigger when I added it.

 

They're very territorial little fish. The females are usually the more aggressive than the males of the species, especially during spawning.

Make sure there are plenty of caves for them to establish their own territories in. Overturned terra cotta flower pots or coconut halves work extremely well for kribs.

 

I've found 2 female kribs in one tank are never a good idea. It sounds like you're going to need to rehome one, especially if one is being aggressive to other fish as well.

 

The issue is that I have no other aquariums to put her in. Would adding a school of 10 tetras distract the Krib from attacking the Angels?

 

I'll venture to guess probably not - any fish that ever nipped at my Angels had to be moved eventually. Are they veiltails? Only my veiltails get harassed - the other Angels are fine. The krib is probably trying to establish dominance - I notice whenever I add a fish to my cichlid tank, the fish who get bullied the most instantly start picking on the new one. Children are the same way lol!!

You could wait it out for maybe a week or so - a lot of times they just need to re-establish their social order. I wouldn't wait longer than that though. People call angels "semI aggressive" and all that but I've never seen mine even defend themselves from bullies. They hide behind plants and the filter intakes and try to stay still and blend in when they feel threatened, so if someone is really nipping them badly they end up having to be moved. That said, I do have a school of tiger barbs that live with my kribs (had serpae tetras in there too but they were rehomed today) and the kribs stay busy chasing the barbs away from their favorite places, which probably distracts them from fighting with other fish to some extent... BUT my larger female krib completely disemboweled and ate a barb recently, ripped it open and ate it from the inside out, chewed it's eyes out and everything. It was pretty brutal, my daughter cried, so while your idea may work somewhat, it'll probably be at the expense of dead tetras. It's no fun having to scoop a dead fish out when it's in multiple pieces.

 

I'll see if I can take them to an LFS. I originally had them with tiger barbs and they did just fine but my LFS assured me they would also be great with angels. Guess that was not the case!