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Free Bristlenose - Wellington - Semi Urgent


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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.

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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.

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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. 

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@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. 

 

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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.

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