I am all of a sudden having problems with Jack Dempsey

So I just got home from being on base for a couple a weeks, my fiance has been taking care of my boys. When I returned home she told me they have been eating just fine and looked great, I went home and they did look great. I tested the water qualities and everything was perfect. But, when returning home from church this morning I found them in a lip lock. They have been in a constant lip lock since. I have never experienced this and do not know what to do, can anyone help me with some advice.

 

Wow! That's awful, the poor things. Have you tried to separate them? I've never kept them so I don't know but are they stuck and can't get apart?

 

No, they are fighting.

 

Are they causing any damage to each other? or are they just trying to figure who is the dominant one? Lets hope it settles down soon

 

Well, they have been in the tank together for about five months and nothing like this has ever happened, so I thought they would have already settled that argument by now. The only damage that I can tell is happening is the top of each of their mouths are pretty beat up.

 

Could it be a mating ritual?

They could be "testing" each other to see if one another is worthy.

Just a theory.

 

Ha s anything in the tank moved?

 

They are both males, and no nothing has been moved in the tank

 

its a dominance thing

 

JD males are quite aggressive to each other. My best advice would be to move one of the males to another tank. The older they get, the worse the battles will be.

I hope this helps!

 

Well I had to re-locate the smaller guy. The older one is extremely beat up and stood no chance of recovery unless I took immediate action. Now I feel like I have lost a member of the family Big guy seems to be doing better, but his fins are damages and he has very little of an upper lip left. It makes me sick seeing him like this, it all just happened so sudden. The only explanation I can think of is that the younger male got along for the five/six months until now when maybe he just reach maturity and decided he wanted the tank to himself...

 

60 gallons is just too small for two male jack dempsey. There wasn't enough room for them both to establish territories and they finally decided to fight it out.

 

Well I had to re-locate the smaller guy. The older one is extremely beat up and stood no chance of recovery unless I took immediate action. Now I feel like I have lost a member of the family Big guy seems to be doing better, but his fins are damages and he has very little of an upper lip left. It makes me sick seeing him like this, it all just happened so sudden. The only explanation I can think of is that the younger male got along for the five/six months until now when maybe he just reach maturity and decided he wanted the tank to himself...

I'm so sorry. Bloodworms and krill (in addition to keeping his water in great shape) will go a long way towards healing him.

Best fishy wishes for a speedy recovery!

 

He is doing great, I feed him his usual diet of new life spectrum, and krill. I have also been adding stress coat with aloe vera and it seems to be healing is damaged fins very well. I don't belive his upper lip will ever grow back but he does not have any problem eating.