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Hi there,

Ive got a 25gal tank, which has been set up a month, but is cycled. In there, among others are 6 silvertip tetra 3m & 3f. One of the females who is a little bigger than the other 2 is spawning, and 2 of the males are chasing her at full speed around the tank, and every now and then she 'drops' (is that the right word) a few eggs. However, she has been chased around the tank for the last hour or so, and looks really tired, and has to stop for 10-15 seconds to lie on the bottom of the tank breating very heavily.

Im not particularly interested in raising babies at the minute, and my corys seem quite fond of caviar, but is the female ok if she is chased round so much?

NB

You're not going to stop them spawing or harassing her, short of removing her from the tank, so your best bet if you don't want to remove her is to provide her with supple hiding spots in the form of lots of caves or a few thickets of plants where the female can hide and break off the line of sight from the followers.

I hate when that happens - when you get 3 and 3 or more males than females. The poor ladies just can't catch a break. Since one has filled with eggs and is probably releasing pheromones, all the males are probably chasing her and she probably wants nothing to do with them, yet.

The best ratio is 2M to 4F, this way, somebody always gets a chance to rest and hang out in the weeds. I actually started out with just 5 white clouds, but had a situation where I had 2 males to 3 females. That wasn't good enough. In that case, it was the boys. If each had 2 females they wouldn't have been trying to kill one another. I added another female and that took care of it.

You may want to feed them some freeze dried daphnia or bloodworms, brineshrimp, anything to help the other two females fill up with eggs. This will draw some of the attention in the other direction.

Also, the chasing usually only lasts so long before she gives in and lets them have their squeeze . If it looks like scales are flying, I would encourage some melafix in the water to make sure no one gets infected. My goldfish female lost all kind of scales, but goldfish mating is much more aggressive.

Last edited by Cory_Di at 14-Jan-2005 17:48