Fish needs home!!!

[Doak6021]

I currently have two male apistogramma cauc TRs. I was told I would be recieving a pair but I recevied two males. Right now one of the males chases and harasses the other all day whenever he gets a chance. I have two females on the way. I can only assume the torturing will get worse when I add the females. What can I do with this other male. I have a feeling he is going to die if the other gets more aggressive and even if he doesn't die he is miserable. I tried my local LFS with no luck. I am willing to ship it but I do not have the proper means to do so(boxes, oxygen, styrofoam, understanding). Any ideas on what to do?

[Red]

Hey if you figure out how to ship i will take the fish..

[Lady Hobbs]

Let's hope the ones coming are not males, too! See if you can switch one of them out at a fish store and get more females.

[Incredulous_Ed]

You can put the weaker male in the 5gal until you can find a home for it. Or ship it to me if you want, lol. Or you can put an ad for it for free on craigslist and someone for sure will take it.

[DCguy]

If you don't want to move it to the 5 gallon tank and can't get rid of it you need to add a bunch of complexity to the tank. If there are places for the extra male to hide that are out of sight of the dominate male it is quite possible to keep two males in a tank that size. However, it means aquascaping the tank to create sanctuary for the extra male.

The best way is to divide up the tank into separate territories that are marked by fairly high barriers of rocks or plants. If you can create three or more "habitat areas" with an open space surrounded by caves, plants, leaf piles or other complexity it is possible to house them both.

Unfortunately, this requires a lot of materials and the visual impact is not what a lot of people want for their tank. If you want to create a complex environment there is more info here www.dwarfcichlid.com/Good_habitat.php.

Finally, if there is an aquarium club in your area you could almost certainly take the fish to a club meeting and find a willing taker.

DC