Aggressive red firefish going after my purple firefish

[89Sem]

I got what I believed was 2 sets of bonded pair of fire fish started off fine. But noticed the one red guys would be in hiding a lot and not very active after a few days found him dead in the morning.

Now I see him bullying the smaller or the Purple guys and sneaking up on him and giving chase. It’s a 125g tank with plenty of caves and hiding spaces. I’m surprised since they are said to be very docile fish. But I think it might be time for the red guy to go.

 

[Slocke]

You can’t mix species of firefish. Sometimes they do fine in groups or pairs of one species if you’re lucky and add at the same time. Never of different species though.

 

[BirdFish5000]

This is simply what happens. One firefish per tank.

 

[89Sem]

Thanks now just a matter of catching them

 

[i cant think]

I got what I believed was 2 sets of bonded pair of fire fish started off fine. But noticed the one red guys would be in hiding a lot and not very active after a few days found him dead in the morning.

Now I see him bullying the smaller or the Purple guys and sneaking up on him and giving chase. It’s a 125g tank with plenty of caves and hiding spaces. I’m surprised since they are said to be very docile fish. But I think it might be time for the red guy to go.

Fire fish aren’t all communal… The issue is your reds are communal towards their own species but rarely towards other species of fire fish. Even then, reds tend to fight eachother off and then being ‘docile’ is true to a point, any fish that’s labelled as ‘Docile’ will be a risk when kept in pairs or groups as they tend to fight eachother off in our tanks.

 

[89Sem]

I appreciate all the advice and help I was able to catch the red fire fish instigator and that was a task all in itself. I thought about catching one of the purples but don’t want to stress them out and the rest of the tank any further. For now they’re getting along if one turns on the other. We will reevaluate or let nature take its course. Lesson learned