Kribensis help

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Chavamomma1227

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Jan 30, 2021
Messages
13
Location
Ohio
I recently purchased what I thought was a male and female pair of Kribensis from my LFS and put them into a 10 gallon tank that i already had along with 6 neon tetras. I knew it was risky putting the Kribs in with the neons, but after like 2 days, I noticed that the definite female was severely harassing the other Krib and has killed and/or eaten 4 of the neons as of today. I immediately separated the Kribs because by the time I really took notice, a lot of the fins had been nipped off the Krib in question. I luckily had a another tank to temporarily put it in, but it can’t stay there because this is a tank I had set up as I awaited a male betta I had ordered online. In the meantime, I went out and purchased a 20 gal long and am in the process of setting that up as I type this... Long story short, my male betta came today so I had to put the other Krib back in the 10 gallon, and was hoping maybe they would chill for just a minute while I get this 20 long set up (I know silly thinking). They definitely did not. Female krib is being extremely aggressive and the other krib looks so scared, pitiful, and has like absolutely ZERO color. I really don’t have another tank to put it in and I’m super questioning if these are actually 2 females instead of a male and female. Any advice would be much appreciated!
 
If the kribs are adults it should be easy to sex them. If the 'male' krib is not substantially larger than the female she might reject him and drive him away in hope for a more suitable mate. Can you provide pictures of the kribs?
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I also ran into problems when i first purchased kribs as they were described as passive cichlid and found them to be rather aggressive fishes. I eventually remove all but one pair that formed and they were much more passive once they bounded (not only among themselves but the other community fishes). I had them with kubotai rasbora (small green rasbora a bit smaller than neon) and they did not harm or eat the rasbora and once they settled down they lef the remaining pygmy cory alone (they killed a couple before they settled).
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After about 8 months i got rid them because they were prolific breeders but they never harmed after the settle in period.
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The males will not look anything like the females - so if your two fishes look very similar they are likely both females or perhaps one is still not mature.
 
Thanks for the advice. I do believe that they are still young so it’s difficult to tell for sure. I went back to the LFS and after much discussion, decided to get a couple more Kribs (now I have 5 total) to try and curb some of the aggression. It’s been maybe 3 days now, and I can honestly say that my original bully is still very much a bully. She has completely dominated the tank - all the other Kribs are chased and hide pretty much constantly. I even noticed last evening that she barely will even let the others eat. I think I’m gonna return her to the store. I’ll give it a few more days but I’m not interested in having a tank with stressed fish all the time - both her and her tank mates. I want to provide my pets with a healthy happy forever home and this just isn’t working out. I did research before I purchased, and I agree with you that a lot of the info made it seem like they could have aggression but were mostly peaceful community fish and I just wasn’t prepared or expecting this level of it.
 
I'm not sure that returning her will help a lot. I suspect what is happening is she is chasing other kribs away until a suitable mate arrives. Once she finds a suitable mate she will calm down. The thing about returning her is that eventually another mature female will appear and i suspect she will do the same thing until you have a suitable male. One trick might be to find a large mature male krib. Also i think your store gave you bad advice in obtaining more kribs. Unlike for example angels where having more angels might cause the aggression to spread and be less of an issue kribs don't seem to work that way. THey are not schooling fishes and they are being aggressive with an objective in place. What cures the aggression is fulfilling the objective.
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Note: a lot of what i said is speculation based on the behavior i observed with my kribs and not known facts so take that into account.
 
That makes a ton of sense. Ive also wondered if I returned her, another female would just take her spot eventually. I appreciate you sharing what you’ve observed. It’s nice to get another perspective! Also, there’s not a ton of options around my area for Kribs. They sell out extremely fast, so they’re hard to find, especially as adults. I could possibly try to post something online to see if someone in my area would be willing to trade. In your honest opinion, do you think I should just wait it out and see how it goes? I’m just afraid that they’re gonna kill each other- which is what I don’t want!
 
Depends on what else is in the tank and how old the fishes are - in my case I lost a couple of pygmy cory and an orange laser cory as well as a few guppies. I didn't care as much about the guppies and pygmy as i did the orange laser. I think it took about 3 weeks for the male i had to mature. A really interesting thing happened after they paired. Since they kept other fishes away from their spawning site the area in front of their cave was free - the pygmy cory took advantage of this free space and hung out there right in front of the kribs and after a week or so the kribs just accepted them. In fact the kribs was so acceptance they allowed their frys to mix with the pygmy with no hostility which i found quite amazing.
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Anyway to answer your question it depends a bit on the other fishes you have - eventually they might learn to stay away from the krib until she calms down or she might brutalize a few other fishes. If she attacks other kribs i would not be concern at the end of the day you want no more than 1 pair of krib. They are prolific breeders and soon you will be over run with baby kribs. The parents do quite an excellent job of protecting and feeding them. Unlike for example rams or angelfish where you have to inject live food the parents will take care of all these needs. It is really quite interesting to watch them raise their youngs but after a while it can of course become a problem unless you have the diligence to remove the young kribs after they put on some size.
 
The only thing I have in the tank other than the kribs are neon tetras, which I’m not concerned about really. I’m just more concerned about the kribs thriving. Maybe once I get a real pair established, I can rehome the other Kribs
 
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