Reclusive behaviour of Parachromis dovii

[Killer]

This is an issue I have tackled many many time with different people and got all sort of responses on, and I feel the people within this community are among the most competent of cichlid keepers. My question is a multi-part question which is centered around this: How do I influence my dovii to be more visible? I have read many stories, posts, seen pictures and videos of dovii showing insane amounts of aggression. The majority of all dovii keepers will normally agree they are among the most fierce of all cichlids. But in my experience with them, they seem to be the most easily spooked and frightened of all cichlids. Many of the Amphilophus species are unflinching and very aggressive towards eachother and humans. Same thing with Nandopsis, Astronotus, Cryptoheros, and other genus cichlids. I would consider my tank setups to be quite biotope correct, offering plenty of rock edifications, driftwood, gravel, etc. to hide in if they feel threatened. I do not use fluorescent lights on the tanks, as this seems only to increase their reclusive behaviour. Each time I walk in the room they run and hide and take 1 or 2 minutes to come back out. Even when they come back out if you approach their tank too quickly, they are inclined to dart back into a cave or clay pot. I am just wondering if there is something I can do to decrease this reclusive behaviour? I have tried all sorts of dither fish and they get picked off rather quickly (within a matter of 1-3 days). Do water conditions affect this? My pH is normally about 7.8, dGH 9, ammonia-0, nitrite-0, nitrate-less than 20ppm. I would consider my water to be in perfect condition as my nitrate is normally 0 (I do daily 40% water changes on all my tanks). I feed high quality pellet foods and on a regular basis. My tanks are species only tanks, as they destroy anything else I put in there. I just want the tank bashing, gill flaring action I have seen of so many other dovii. My breeding pair has been in their tank for 2 months, my f1 for a month, and my wild for a month. Now how much will their size affect their aggression? My wild dovii is about 6" SL, my f1 is only 2.5", my breeder male is ~9" female is ~6". Any info, suggestions, recomendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[gtlaw]

Killer,
i kept them in a 125 for almost 2 years. when i had a pair they were great, not reclusive at all. but when the male killed the female(he was 13" and she was 9") he went into hiding, and would not come out for nothing. this was in a lowly lit tank in my basement, with excellent decoration, in view of a 120 full of his own offspring. after 2 month i finally found a 10" female, put her in the tank with him, and he was back to his normal self. within a month they spawned, and everything seemed fine untill 3 months later he killed her! then he went back into hiding. i tried starving him out, it seemed like he would rather starve to death than let me see him! so after 3 months of his hiding, he had to go.
i think if these fish aren't raised from a very young age as pet's in a bare tank with constant human interaction, as adults they will always be extremly reclusive. i doubt there is one factor that you can change to help alleviate his reclusiveness. the only hope i believe is tankmates(impossible if under 500 gallons) or if you spend as much time as possible with him, and this could take years, if ever for him to come around.
good luck.

[Killer]

I am tempted to put other fish in there with him, but I don't want to breed him, and I am worried about other fish getting beat on. I had some giant danios with him but they soon became snacks. Now I'm thinking maybe a pike cichlid would be a good choice. At night time when I have my lunar light on, he is very active and comes and swims around quite a bit, even if all the lights are off and only a little light can come through the window he still comes out and looks at me. But during the daytime he is hidden underneath his clay pot, and not even just hanging out in the center of it, he is huddled up in the side so you can barely tell he's there. Very strange and upsetting behaviour in my opinion.

[gtlaw]

you definitely can't add anything in a 125. i raised mine from 7" in my tank, and thought it might be ok. when he killed these females there was no sign it was going to happen and it was so wierd, i found them with thier mouths open like they were screaming or suffocated, and they hardly had a scratch on them. he must have rammed them real hard and messed up thier latteral lines or broke thier spine.
if you wanted to try a female in this tank you will need a divider. it will bring him out, but look ugly, and hardly give either enough room.

[Killer]

I don't know, I placed my breeding pair together without a divider and they have gotten a long pretty well since day one. The female actually dominates the male to be honest with you. I know that this isn't always going to be the case, but it goes to show there are no absoultes in cichlid behaviour, originally I was afraid of the outcome you experienced but in my tank, which is only a 75 mind you, the male comes up with torn fins every week. The female is very defensive of her flower pot as well as the brood they're raising. The male has stepped it up recently, I spoke with the guy I got my wild dovii from and he had it in a 40gal. with a dovii/jag hybrid and apparently they lived together for quite some time and suddenly my dovii snapped and killed the hybrid. I'm thinking of maybe putting some sort of pike cichlid in there. I know they're pretty scrappy and will at least cause some commotion in the tank, but I'll be sure to keep my eye on it.

[gtlaw]

mine got along best when they had fry. like i said out of nowhere he killed her. i got 3 clutches out of the first one with no drama at all. she never hid from him, and it seemed like she didn't have to. i guess she decided not to spawn with him so he killed her, and this wasn't untill he was 13".
my trimacs are in the exact same setup these dovii were in, and the female is always hiding, and being chased by the male unless they are spawning. this seems bad , but the female knows to hide or get beat up, where the dovii probably felt safe, but was really in danger. i think she didn't know what to do when he got rough.
this is just my observation of what happened with mine, yours may be different
the pike will be a bad idea. when i got my pair of dovii at 7" i had a 3 year old 10" crenicichla lepidota in the tank. the male immediatly started to pick on it , and in a week i had to remove the pike. pikes usually require live foods too which makes them a real pain. i did have a pleco and a mystus leucophasis with my dovii the whole time even when he killed the females he left these fish alone, but they did nothing for his reclusiveness.

[Killer]

It seems your dovii acted just as strangely as mine. I planned on purchasing a pike regardless, I'll test him out in my shy dovii tank and see what happens (of course monitoring the entire time he's in there). As I know dovii can kill with rapid speed. Fortunately in my experience with Crenicichla, I have been able to always get them either on pellet food or at the least easily attainable frozen food. I think I'll get a good size C. johanna or perhaps a Strigata complex species. As of today he still maintains his shyness and unwillingness to come out. My only other thought is to get a female and grow her out and perhaps introduce them to eachother. As this tactic helped out tremendously with my breeder female, she was very shy and reclusive but once I introduced her to her male, she automatically became high visible and King errr... Queen of the tank and now runs him around! Perhaps lightning will strike twice in this case and help me to better enjoy this animal that I have so patiently waited for.

[Mule]

I know this is an old topic, but I thought I'd share my exp. I've kept a breeding pair of Dovii is a 150 long for quite some time. They were purchased as 3" juveniles, and had Jack Dempsey, Green Terror, Red Devil, and a few other fish as tankmates.

All tankmates were larger then the Dovii, so the Dovii cowered a bit. The tank was in a brightly lit room that got alot of natural light, as well as the aquarium lights, in addition to plenty of foot traffic.

I think this helped them overcome their shyness. It forced them to come out during feeding time or they wouldn't get any food. Eventually, they grew enough to dominate the tank and send everyone else into hiding. Plus, all the people constantly coming and going, they treated people as fish.

One more tidbit, 2 guys on another board with big tanks had this to tell me:

One used to have a 400g with a 24" male Dovii. It was housed with a massive red tailed cat, an 18" red devil x Midas, and a 18" managuense. All the tankmates looked great, but there was much lip locking when the Dovii came out.

The other guy has an 1850g tank with just about every large South American Cichlid you can imagine. He said his Dovii isn't afraid of people, but amazingly is not very aggressive towards it's tankmates.