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Hello Everyone,

I have run into a situation. I have a 55 gallon tank with the following fish in it: 4 clown loaches, 3 rams, 1 black ghost knife, and two kribensis. The most recently added fish are the kribensis, and that was about a month ago. When I first introduced them everything was fine, but now they have taken over the whole bottom of the tank as their territory (but have only applied this to the rams). Is this a problem if the rams are swimming at mid to upper tank level? The kribs don't show any aggression towards the rams unless they come down towards the bottom. Is this situation a problem or can I leave it? If it is a problem, do you have any suggestions?

Is a problem for the rams as they have no real defense other then running. Add some plants in the middle of the tank, real or fake. maybe driftwood or rocks. a good sized piece of decor.

The idea is to break the line of sight. also add some caves on both ends of the tank so the kribs pick one and the rams can have the other. sepperated territories with a break in line of sight should solve the issue.

When you say you've got 2 kribs, are they a male/female pair, or two females (I'm presuming you haven't got 2 males in there!)? If they are 2 females, then I would take the above advice. Added tank decoration will allow the Rams to come to the bottom out of sight of the kribs and I wouldn't have thought you'll have too many more problems than you're currently having.

However, if you have a male/female pair, this could be a problem. I can only speak from my experience with my one pair of kribs, which I believe to be fairly typical behaviour, but I can't be sure. Initially when they paired up, like yours, they set up a territory and some fish were ignored (seen as no threat) and others were chased away, but were ignored once they had left the immediate area. The message seemed to be 'Just keep your distance from me'. However, once they started to breed, I realised that I hadn't seen anything of their aggression. They wouldn't just give a quick 'shooing' away of the other fish, there was a prolonged chase all over the tank and attacks on the other fish. I was lucky that I had another tank to move the persecuted fish to. I would be fearful that if your kribs started to breed, your rams would suffer the same persecution, and not coming down to the bottom level of the tank is not going to save them.

breeding pair of kribs wont go far from line of site of their cave. they are only chaseing so fish dont eat their eggs. i would think a 4ft tank is plenty of tank to setup enough breaks in line of site to avoid serious beatings.

As I said, I can only speak from my experience with my one pair, but with my pair, one would stay at the cave and the other would go off chasing endlessly any other fish they didn't fancy. Once the eggs have hatched and they take the young for trips around the tank, being in site of the cave could be less of an issue. Personally, I would just be prepared to have to move the Rams (especially as the original post says they have taken over the whole of the bottom of the tank, not just a certain territory), although I do agree, a blocked line of sight may well do the trick.

I am curious... what type of Rams? German Blue? Bolivian? And how did the Rams do with the rest of the community prior to the Kribs arriving?

I am planning my 55g and want to have a pair of Bolivians in my community.

Personally I think you have the wrong selection of fish in the wrong sized tank. The clowns and kinfefish will get too big for it, the kribs being territorial will mean they'll defend 'their' territory and the rams are too timid to do anything about it really.