[imaROByou]

I've got a 55gallon all male tank that I've been working on for quite some time. Originally I had stocked lithobates, electra, ruby red, baenschi, maylandi, ngara flametail, and lwanda.

I found my lwanda to be too aggressive and removed him and then of course everything was fine. few weeks later my ruby red is the new boss and pushing fish into the upper corners and stressing everyone out. So I decided to do a big change and got rid of him and the sulfur head who was really really beat up and added a swallowtail, a red shoulder, and an azureus. Everything was great for a few months, everyone was showing great color (these are all young adults at about 3 inches) Then all of a sudden my azureus and red shoulder began to slowly become more subdominant while my electra out of nowhere went from one of the middle fish to the big bully.

sooo.. as you guessed now my electra is causing a bunch of stress, my azureus is all black almost showing no color, and my red shoulder is greyed out for the most part and both are hiding in the top corners the majority of the time.

so what should I do? upgrade to a bigger tank or do I need to remove fish or add more fish? maybe a group of acei or something? I'm so out of ideas =\

im beginning to think haps and peacocks are just not for me

 

[poseidons minions]

go fo 125 gal

 

[Nina_b]

It sounds like you're trying for an all male tank?

In all male tanks, this sort of shuffling to get a balance is pretty standard practice, until, eventually a balance forms. I'm not sure when that eventually is, but I can only imagine that it will take quite some time.

You can try some of the standard ways of coping with agression. Isolate the agressive fish for a time, before putting him back (the idea is that he will then no longer have a spot on the hierarchy).
Rearrange all decorations (not sure if this will work for peacocks/haps, since they're not as 'rock dwelling')
Keep your temperature a bit lower, and feed smaller, more frequent meals during the day (lower metabolism and less hunger - more peaceful fish)

I don't know if any of these methods work in the long term, but this is what forum people generally say.

I'm also pretty sure haps get big, and need a tank larger than 55 gallons, but I have no knowledge of them other than what I've read here. Perhaps the species profiles can help?

 

[DJRansome]

I do think it is hard to do all-male in a 55G. And some of your earlier choices might have been oversized for a 55G. But it almost sounds like you might have a female hiding in there...is that possible?

I would have thought once the lwanda was removed the rest would have worked better. And though all fish are individuals, I would not have picked a ruby red (unless we are talking about one of the hybrid reds) or an electra as tank bully.

Didn't quite follow the numbers you ended up with, but do you have 8-10 fish?

 

[exasperatus2002]

a 55 is a bit small for an all male tank. Time to upgrade.

 

[imaROByou]

I do think it is hard to do all-male in a 55G. And some of your earlier choices might have been oversized for a 55G. But it almost sounds like you might have a female hiding in there...is that possible?

I would have thought once the lwanda was removed the rest would have worked better. And though all fish are individuals, I would not have picked a ruby red (unless we are talking about one of the hybrid reds) or an electra as tank bully.

Didn't quite follow the numbers you ended up with, but do you have 8-10 fish?

currently I have 7 fish. and I too was surprised to see my ruby red go into bully mode as I've read them to be more peaceful and same with the electra. my lithobates and my baenschi were the 2 dominant fish for the majority of the time but ever since the electra all of a sudden took over that has changed.

Also I do not think there is a chance that I have a female as all of my fish are showing color except my red shoulder and azureus. Although the azureus does show a shimmer of blue and for the first 2 months was pretty close to fully colored up. The red shoulder also shows a trace of red and blue and a month or so ago was showing more color. So I don't think it is a female issue. At this point I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make this work especially if it means a bigger tank. but I'm worried that a bigger tank wont change anything :\