I have a brown Bristlenose who’s probably just over a year old, about as long as a thumb. Possibly male but I do not know as I inherited the tank. I would like to give him a new home as he does not get along with my gold barbs. 

It's probably the barb's not the plec

It’s only two barbs. They used to steal his food when he was young but as he got older he started hitting back at one of the barbs and that’s escalated to both of them. One is now in shock and barely moving. He would start charging them at meal times and that’s escalated to him roaming the tank and attacking them in their territory. 
 

Not much online about Bristlenose aggression but it’s localised entirely to these two barbs, I have a bunch of other fish that he doesn’t seem to care about. Internet said he’s probably hungry but he eats well and I give him a constant stream of food.

Dammm! Could you take some video of this?

Guess the quite man just had too much 

I had him in isolation but he escaped this morning back into the tank. I have video of him roughing up my mystery snails, but that’s slowed down. I’ll try to get some footage of him with the barbs.

The only aggression I have ever seen in bristlenoses is from the larger males chasing everyone away from the food! I guess this one has more testosterone than normal ?

You should be able to sex the fish now it has grown a bit. Males have bristles running up the middle of their head. Females do not have these (but often have shorter bristles around the mouth) and are a lot wider than the males.

Thanks for this, can confirm he’s a male. I’ve googled Bristlenose aggression and it seems to be pretty rare. The person we inherited the tank off didn’t know much about looking after him so I think he may have grown up hungry and learned some bad habits or something - that’s my theory but I don’t actually know a lot about fish. I’ve tried buying him a cave, tried every food under the sun, building a barrier in the middle of the tank so he can’t see them etc. 

It actually really sucks to see him go, but I’m thinking maybe he’s not happy either if he’s acting like this. I’ve tried every fish store in town but nobody will take him. 

He sounds like a hell of a character someone will be lucky to get him.

Please do post a video to you tube to help others on this rare topic 

Somebody with large fish ought to be able to keep him safely as they will soon put a stop to the aggression. Have you got driftwood in the aquarium? Bristlenoses need this.

Hi Fishboy, I have a fish room in Upper Hutt if you need to rehome him or switch him for one of my many bristlenoses you are more than welcome, if he really is a bit like you say we have Multiple tanks so he can go into one of his own if needed.

@Caryl yes I did have driftwood, also cuttlefish for him and the snails to rasp on. Plus a constant stream of vegetables, pellets etc. 
 

I actually managed to find a home for him in Newlands yesterday, so hopefully he’s happy there. We cleaned out his cave yesterday and there quite a few empty trumpet snail shells there and the shells looked super deteriorated. 
 

I never got footage of him attacking the barbs, but I have a few videos of him smacking around some snails if anyone wants to see them?

Thank you for your help everyone. 

 

please

17 hours ago, nomad fish said:

please

Video below. This was not at feeding time or anything, just the snail was in the middle area. On my Vimeo I’ve got the start of this, which is him starting to push it from the other side of the tank.

I feel like people will say he’s hungry, but he had a ton of food available all the time. Content vegetables we’d put pleco logs in his cave etc.

Yeah looks like a right arss very pretty though 

Yeah he’s very pretty. I’m going to check in on how he’s doing in his new home tomorrow. 

13 hours ago, Fishboy1988 said:

Yeah he’s very pretty. I’m going to check in on how he’s doing in his new home tomorrow. 

hopefully he's found some peace,
if he's still at it think of the camera