Dog Whiskey
Community Member
So a few months ago a rainwater killifish showed up in my tank (FOWLR). I think it hitchhiked as an egg on some macro algae. He's now about 1.5".
He's bold, but everyone else in the tank didn't seem too bothered (they'd just swim away when he bugged them) -- except for the two chromis, who he terrorized to the point where they went hiding in the rocks near the bottom of the tank all the time. The chromis are the largest fish in the tank, BTW, and were previously actively swimming in the open water. I tried rearranging the rockscape -- no luck. My next step was to catch the killifish and put him in time out in the fuge, where he's been for about 5 days.
Everyone else seems more relaxed now that he's gone. Again, except for the chromis. The smaller of the two comes out occasionally and hangs with the clownfish pair, but the larger will not leave his cave. I know they're not sick -- they're eating and otherwise fine.
I'm not planning on reintroducing the killifish until everyone chills out, but does anyone have any experience with how long that might take? I figure two weeks at least, but so far the one chromis is not returning to anything resembling "normal." The hiding started in late April, if that's worth anything.
And yes, I realize it may not be realistic to reintroduce the killifish at all, but I'm trying to see if I can change the behavior and avoid buying another tank to turn over to a hitchhiker (he's small, but I feel bad that he's in stuck in the fuge which is tiny).
He's bold, but everyone else in the tank didn't seem too bothered (they'd just swim away when he bugged them) -- except for the two chromis, who he terrorized to the point where they went hiding in the rocks near the bottom of the tank all the time. The chromis are the largest fish in the tank, BTW, and were previously actively swimming in the open water. I tried rearranging the rockscape -- no luck. My next step was to catch the killifish and put him in time out in the fuge, where he's been for about 5 days.
Everyone else seems more relaxed now that he's gone. Again, except for the chromis. The smaller of the two comes out occasionally and hangs with the clownfish pair, but the larger will not leave his cave. I know they're not sick -- they're eating and otherwise fine.
I'm not planning on reintroducing the killifish until everyone chills out, but does anyone have any experience with how long that might take? I figure two weeks at least, but so far the one chromis is not returning to anything resembling "normal." The hiding started in late April, if that's worth anything.
And yes, I realize it may not be realistic to reintroduce the killifish at all, but I'm trying to see if I can change the behavior and avoid buying another tank to turn over to a hitchhiker (he's small, but I feel bad that he's in stuck in the fuge which is tiny).
