# Shell Dweller Aggression Issues



## g-spot245 (Jul 23, 2015)

So I had a happy little colony of 1 male and 3 female lamprologus ocellatus gold until one day last week when my male had an intense run-in with a plant. He disappeared for several days and I found him dead underneath my java fern. Evidently, he had dug under it and became trapped. RIP. Now I had 3 adult females and no male. Adult males ocellatus are super hard to obtain but eventually I found someone selling wild caught adult males. I ordered one and he arrived yesterday but I have one dominant female who is just not having any of it. I was gone for an hour and she nearly killed him before I threw her into a little fry nursery. I let him get used to the tank and he seemed to be doing great. He was holding his ground against the 2 more docile females but then when I put the dominant female back in... as soon as she saw him she started what had to be the most violent fish fight in history. It ended in 10 seconds when she chased him into his shell and then followed him in until I physically shooed her away and put her back in time out in the nursery. What do I do??? I have this stone cold b$(#h in the nursery and this poor guy cowering in his shell. I feel like I just have to give away the female but I would like not too. I'm not sure that I can resolve her unrelenting hatred for this male who, by the way, is twice her size (although a bit skinny at the moment).


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## joescaper1 (Feb 14, 2013)

Do you think, after seeing this, the plant killed your first male?

Joe


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## g-spot245 (Jul 23, 2015)

Oh yeah without a doubt. That plant came out of nowhere!!!!


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## Altophile (Aug 5, 2015)

Is the female equal or bigger in size to him? Any tankmates?

If he is small enough to hide completely inside of an average turbo shell he's probably not old enough to be man of the house as it were. I would separate him and feed the %$#% out of him, lots of water changes etc. etc.

...When kept Occies the males were so big in comparison to the females that, if they showed him attitude, he'd just beat her up and, if she was lucky, he wouldn't bury her alive in her shell! So if he's not big enough to laugh at her assaults, he's just not big enough yet.

Well fed fish are generally less grumpy than hungry ones though I'm sure thats not the whole of your problem. My guess is size + age +groupsize is the culprit/s.

A few altos goes a long way ime, my occies (as well as my meleagris) were always preoccupied with their tank mates, mainly calvus. It's just an opinion but my thinking was that a group of born fry predators like calvus commanded the attention and teeth of all of my occies. In this case, again, what I observed was what seemed to be respect for the large male's ability to ward off predators. It's sounds like hooey, just tryin to help you out though  ... I just realized you posted he is twice her size.  The mistake might have been introducing him before he's brutishly fat and ready to defend himself.

It'd be a shame to lose him because they are rare these days and good ones are even more rare.

if you have access to females just get rid of her (show her how far a tennis racket can launch an occie from your back porch?  ) hth


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## Altophile (Aug 5, 2015)

Once he is beefed up, you might separate her until he has bred with the other females, my guess is that he'll be so pumped up with kids around he won't have her crampin his style


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