Angry ABN

[Wheresmypleco]

Well, I decided to add 3 more little plecos to my tank tonight. They are all about 1" in length. The original one I added to the tank doesn't seem to get alone with just one of the others... possibly two, but one to a larger extent.

Is this normal for such small fry? I figured I would raise these guys up together and separate later on down the road IF they showed signs of aggression. I didn't realise they were so angry.

Here is just one video I took, at the point of this video they had been doing this dance for about 10 minutes. 15 minutes after making this video, they are still going at it.

And here it is...
http://s59.photobucket.com/albums/g299/argh81/?action=view&current=AncistrusFightTonight.flv

[Wheresmypleco]

Well, these spats seem to be territory disputs. Although the initial fight lasted about an hour, they seemed to determine who was king and who was not. These spats seem to have occured between a few fish in the tank. I guess this was to form a hierarcy, if so, it seems pretty complex. It should be interesting when I add another 3-4 fish into the tank. I'll probably film that too. I wonder if the ones who seemed most aggresive will end up being the males.

[Zoban]

When you go to add the additional fish move the stuff in the tank around to "break" the current pecking order.

[Wheresmypleco]

I added five more to the group the other night; figured there was power in numbers. Nine should be a decent number. If they cannot keep up with the algae in this 10g, I don't know what will. The fish did not seem to fight as much as the first time, although they still quarrell over food and territory, but not nearly as harsh.

I did put in a second piece of cucumber so they wouldn't have to fight so hard to feed. Also fed a Spirulina Waffer to makesure there is lots of food for all.