pecking order

is it always that the largest female be the winner? does a male in the community tank (of females) play any role? how do they establish that pecking order that everyone has been mentioning so much about?

well, most larger female is the leader of the group. this can be seen as when bigger female moves about, you'll see other females won't dare to stay on her path....but what also interesting is that there are times when you see a smaller female is the leader. this is not too uncommon. for instance, we had occasions when smaller female started to chase every other females away, even managed to nip a few tails. she even chased males. in short, she's just bored :)... She wants to be the leader and until such time no other females or males able to challenge her, she'll be the leader.

there are times when pecking order is very much apparent. you can easily notice them when:

• when new fish is added to the tank (doesn't matter whether that's male or female)
• during or after feeding time

it's kinda cute to see females sorting out their pecking order. sometimes you see blood is shed (well, nipping that is).

males have their order too, but you should only observe this when they are smaller (e.g. when they haven't really doing the full fight). sometimes they chase each other or flare for awhile, sometimes you see fin is nipped a little here and there, but there is no harm on that. it's a good indication that you need to separate them soon though, cause if you're late on doing that, you'll regret it....in our experience, this is approx when the males are about 2 to 2.5 months old. anything older than that would mean they are more than ready to fight for their lives, so if you haven't separate them, you're way too late lol.

getting back to pecking order....sometimes you see females (or males) fight very aggressively just to sort out this pecking order. well, that's the ritual. they need to know who's stronger and who should get the big share of the food (or who gets the chance to mate that gorgeous male, if you have a male in the tank).

if you are weak-hearted, you can ease up their aggression by a number of ways:

• introduce lots of fish on the same time (the more populated the tank, the more confused they are)
• keep disturbing the tank (add pump, filter, lights, anything)
• put other fish in the tank
• feed them on frequent intervals (they'll be distracted on getting the food). the opposite of this is true too...if you feed them on more regular and less-frequent intervals, you'll notice your fish getting aggressive, cause they're hungry and will fight for food
• keep your tank dark (if you can't distract them, make them think it's night, so they can't see each other flaring)
• depending on size of your tank, introduce at least 1 male. the male will be the boss and he'll chase the females away (the male usually doesn't nip females' fin). old male is a good candidate. young male is full of testosterone, so he may ended up chasing the female for courting, LMAO
  
• give enough hiding places. unfortunately, hiding place also serves as point of contention. whoever claims the spot usually is very aggressive in defending it, so you'll see nipping there
  

so, there you go, sort out your pecking order in the tank. don't hesitate to add more fish to the tank (some is so scared to 'disturb' the established pecking order). adding more fish makes the tank more lively, not the old dull folks ;) ;)

we used to have a couple of "show" tanks where we put about 20 or so females and 1 or 2 males. they live very happily there. but one thing that we've learnt is that we need to "rotate" some females from time to time, from one tank to another. This rotation introduces new mixed of fish into the tanks and make the whole thing lively again.