Kribensis Pair - Male harassing female

[SupersoNick95]

So I have had a kribensis pair for about a month in a 20 gallon with the intention of letting them breed. 
 

so far they have produced free swimming fry. The fry are doing well, and have progressed to eating crushed flake. Both parents would also care for the fry, taking turns making sure there were no predators in the tank, even though it’s just them and their offspring in the tank.

just yesterday the weirdest thing happened… the male started caring for the fry but then also started incessantly chasing the female around. I found her this morning hiding behind the hang on back filter. She had badly damaged fins. I have since put the male in a time out net within the tank. The female is already back to her normal self. 

will this behavior from the male continue once I reintroduce him? Her fins are so badly damaged that I’m afraid of putting him back in. It’s so discouraging because up until this point they had become such a nice bonded pair, always swimming together. 
 

I have a community tank I can put him in, but it would suck not having them in the species only tank. Attached is a picture of the female and her badly damaged fin. It’s almost completely gone 😞
 

 

Edited May 29, 2022 by SupersoNick95

[Fish Folk]

I have heard of this sort of thing happening with bi-parental fry care, though my experiences with Kribensis never went bad like this. No telling what might happen if / when you reintroduce him. Everything depends upon your goals at this point. Do you want to preserve the fry-parent bond? Allow them to stay with a gentle parent. Do you want to keep the adults together? Then maybe relocate the fry. Once the fry are a full month old (probably earlier), they're pretty much good to go on their own. 

[SupersoNick95]

On 5/29/2022 at 8:58 PM, Fish Folk said:

I have heard of this sort of thing happening with bi-parental fry care, though my experiences with Kribensis never went bad like this. No telling what might happen if / when you reintroduce him. Everything depends upon your goals at this point. Do you want to preserve the fry-parent bond? Allow them to stay with a gentle parent. Do you want to keep the adults together? Then maybe relocate the fry. Once the fry are a full month old (probably earlier), they're pretty much good to go on their own. 

I can’t really relocate the fry at this point. They’re much too small, and I don’t have another tank. 
 

my goal is to keep the two kribensis. Whether that means one has to be moved to another tank then that’s fine. 
 

I have a 20 gallon community tank with some tetras and a keyhole cichlid. Think I could move the male there? 

[Fish Folk]

On 5/29/2022 at 9:16 PM, SupersoNick95 said:

I can’t really relocate the fry at this point. They’re much too small, and I don’t have another tank. 
 

my goal is to keep the two kribensis. Whether that means one has to be moved to another tank then that’s fine. 
 

I have a 20 gallon community tank with some tetras and a keyhole cichlid. Think I could move the male there? 

As long as the tetras aren't too small, he'll probably be OK. But keep an eye on him! Keyhole Cichlids are super peaceful. I miss ours....

[SupersoNick95]

On 5/29/2022 at 9:18 PM, Fish Folk said:

As long as the tetras aren't too small, he'll probably be OK. But keep an eye on him! Keyhole Cichlids are super peaceful. I miss ours....

Yeah I think that’s the best course of action. Crossing my fingers. Because since getting into this hobby I’ve had bad luck when it comes to aggression from fish that should be fine together 😞