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In the peak of my algae problem (which I am happy to say is cleared up now) I was setting up the defenses which included ottos, amanos, and a small flag fish. The ottos, along with a new ferting schedule and lighting hours cleared up the algae in a week or so. The ottos continue to munch away at any form of algae they can find, wheather it be live or in disc form. While the flag fish has taken up a new past time, tormenting my growing panda herd . It started out as chasing them a little and they would quickly get out of the way, but it has recently turned into shredding fins and carrying around one of my juvenilles in its mouth. . I quickly grabbed my net and caught the dern thing and began acclimating it for QT.
The baby panda is fine, I have cooled off a little, after seeing my little panda I raised being stuck in the jaws of what I thought was a peaceful algae eater.

Just sharing my experience with one..... great algae eaters but, not right for my tank.

what kind of flag fish r u talkin bout. a dwarf flag acara, a flag cichlid or a florida flag fish?

if your talking about florida flag fish, i havent had much luck with them either, i havent had anything dramic like that happen to me, but i find them hard to keep in a community tank, probably best suited for an outdoor pond with rosy minnows.

FFF are a great fish, first off you only have one that a problem, the best way to keep them as maintenance crew is a group of 3, 2 females to one male, in a community tank you won't have to worry about to much of them breeding. they will breed but any fry will quickly be eaten. I have to put them in breeding tanks to get fry. Anyway I'm sorry you are having trouble with you fish, my guess it a male and it wants a female because they spawn often. I guess pent up energy.

Djrichie
"So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish" Douglas Adams

I'd have to agree with Richie... All of the many Flag Killies I've dealt with have been peaceful. The extent of any interspecies conflicts I've seen with them has been males merely herding around livebearers or other killies to keep them in a group with the female Flag Killies. I have not noticed any unusual predatory behavior in them, but if the baby cory could fit in the killie's mouth, you can expect it to eventually get eaten (as with any fish).

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Exactly my experience with them: extremely nice fish that do not show aggression towards others, let's-be-happy attitude. Of course, I kept always one male with several females or females only. It is a different matter if several males are kept together. Probably the biggest problem is to get fish that do not carry internal parasites as the majority of what is available at stores is wild caught.

Its a bit like tigerbarbs, some never cause trouble, others will fin nip en masse or individually. They are not totally safe community fish for this reason, but you can still include them into community with a little care and planning. There are many "communities". After all there are plenty of fish FFF's wouldnt dare bite, they are not an especially courageous fish.

Their reputation as occassional fin-nippers is well known, but still a useful fish under correct circumstances.

Thank you all for your replies.

So you think if I got more than I would not have a problem with them and my pandas? Or do you think I just got a mean one?

You could try it, might be worth it to add a few more. Your fish will spend more time displaying to each other and pecking at each other if they're in a larger group. i'd keep that QT tank going though for preperation if you need to use plan B

Every florida flag I have ever had picked on the other tank mates. They spent more time harassing other fish instead of eating the algae.

Thanks for the insight Fallout,

I dont think Im going to get any more though.

blueconvict2,

Thats exactly how mine is.

Well, I'm glad to be reading all these opinions! I have hair algae bad in my tank from putting a stick in there. A fish store I know of will be getting some FFF in, in a couple of weeks & I am going to get 1 male & 2 females. Now I know what to watch out for. Thanks for all the input guys!

My experience is that Florida Flag Fishes are robust, somewhat rough and tumble customers that do best with fishes the same size or somewhat larger than themselves. Males in particular can be boisterous, and a lone male is probably a bad idea except in a setup containing other boisterous, robust fishes. However, a male with females to distract him is more likely to be hell-bent upon courtship and mating than anything else.

As for eating algae, mine do a superb job. My male is attacking some algae at the very moment I'm typing this - I looked over my shoulder at the aquarium and there he is, stripping algae off a Java Fern leaf.

Bear in mind that my FFFs share their home with three Siamese Algae Eaters, that the Siamese Algae Eaters are now bigger and pack more body mass than the FFFs, and the male FFF will still chase them off if he thinks they're invading his patch when he's in territorial mood prior to courting the female. Which remimds me, I think I'll get 2 more females to keep him happy ...

Consequently, seeing myself how rough and tumble the FFFs can be with bigger fishes than themselves, I'd be VERY wary of putting them in with something like Panda Corys. If I ever needed to let the FFFs loose in the main aquarium because of a thread alga outbreak, I'd swap ALL the occupants around and relocate EVERYONE, to make sure that the population balance stayed the same.

Remember, FFFs ARE Killies after all, and quite a few Killie species feature boisterous, even aggressive males. Which is why many Killie keepers who specialise in them maintain sex ratios of 1 male to 3 females or more in their aquaria. Some Killies are seriously territorial, and though the FFF isn't a particularly bad example, when a male is in breeding condition he can be pretty boisterous.

For an extreme example of bad tempered Killie behaviour try Pachypanchax playfairii - the unusual one with the raised scales that looks as if it has dropsy. This is a fish that is mean enough to live with Convict Cichlids and give the Convicts a hard time.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I got some florida flag fish & this is my experience so far! I decided to get 6......2 males & 4 females, but think I ended up with 3 males & 3 females. Shortly after putting them in my 55 gallon tank Sat., the best looking of the males started nipping at my other fish that were in there. He especially went after my long finned blk. skirt tetras, platies & guppies. He was not particularly mean to any of his fellow FFF, but was apparently the dominant male of the group. The situation didn't appear too bad & I thought he might calm down.

Last night, 3 nights later, I noticed a chunk out of my male guppies tail. I was watching that one FFF today & he was still a bully. Then I noticed my male guppy freaking out, trying to escape through the tank glass & sure enough here comes that one male FFF! It took another chunk out!

That one FFF is now in my QT tank. I have not noticed any bad behavior from the other FFF, so hopefully I will have a peaceful tank now. Soooooo I assume that occasionally one can get a mean tempered male FFF that goes after other fish in the tank.

I've got a FFF in my 38 gallon planted aquarium and I've never seen it eat any algae and boy do I have algae for it to eat.

I've seen mine eat the algae, but they are so small & the algae grows so quick that I don't think they will ever catch up with it. I think I'm going to have to take everything out & boil it, as it is all over my tank. Or maybe just pull out all I can, & see if they can keep up from there. But at least they are trying.