Help with Kribs

**kribskid94** · 07-29-2008, 09:21 PM

I just got a male and female krib yesterday. The female seems to be acting okay, but the male just sits on the bottom. He is not very active. The female looks like she is ready to mate, but he isn't. She keeps chasing him around. He also has a very tiny white lump on his left side behind and just above his eye. Is this okay?

**kribskid94** · 07-29-2008, 11:02 PM

Please Help Me! I can't get a good picture of it, but it is about the size of 1mm, and it sticks out about 2mm. It is white. I cycled the tank, added stress coat, it was set upp about 4 months ago. It has three caves and two large plants. It is a ten gal. the water has recently been changed. The other tank mates are the female, a male and female black phantom tetra, who are very afraid of them, and lots of baby snails. He is still a juvenile. He is not feeding. Should I return him?

**Fishalicious** · 07-29-2008, 11:27 PM

Are you sure you have a male and female? Females are not that aggressive when wanting to spawn...it sounds like you may have 2 males or 2 females and being in too small a tank for dwarf cichlids (they need at least 20 gallons in my opinion) one of them does not have enough chance to get away from the other...the white bump could be due to a bite from the other Krib.

**kribskid94** · 07-29-2008, 11:42 PM

The female has a round dorsal fin and the male has a pointed one. Is it possible that she wants to mate but he doesn't?

**Fishalicious** · 07-29-2008, 11:47 PM

When a Krib wants to mate it will display by throwing up it's fins and shaking it's body in front of the 'desired' mate...if their is no response they will continue to try and get it's interest but there is usually no chasing or biting involved.. if a female is ready to spawn or wants to mate she will have a birght red/purple belly.

The other Krib that is sitting still in the substrate sounds stressed (due to the chasing?) Is there a spot on it's caudal fin?

**kribskid94** · 07-30-2008, 12:00 AM

Her stomach is dark red and she is throwing up her fins. The way the spot looks is not like a bit. She just kind of pushes him around. It's not too bad. I decided to isolate him in his own tank. The only spot on his caudal fin is the eye spots males get.

**kribskid94** · 07-30-2008, 12:20 AM

Any ideas or thoughts?

**Abbeys_Mom** · 07-30-2008, 02:05 AM

Sounds like it could be ick. If he is really pale, It could be HITH disease. I have lost 2 Kribs in the last year to it, because when they are bullied they stay near the bottom and pick up more of the bacteria from the gravel.