Poorly Raphael

[Genieworx]

Hi Guys

I'm back with another dilemma it would appear. I arrived home to find one of my oldest tankmates rather bloodied and battered. My Raphael is around 3 inches long and usually lives under a pile of bogwood with my chubby plec. The Chubby is the largest fish in the tank at about 4 inches long and around 1 1/2 inches wide. I obtained him around a month ago and peace reigned despite the bullish behaviour of the chubby, who is rather nervous and always excavating the wood pile.

I considered the other tankmates but I dont have anything else that I believe could harm the raph. He has a ragged and reddened pectoral fin as far as I can tell and is shedding his slime coat.

I have added some stress coat to the tank but any other suggestions would be welcome as I dont want to lose him

Thanks in advance

Paul

[MatsP]

My suggestion would be to separate the two fishes. If they are fighting now, they'll probably continue to fight...

Adding melafix may help a little bit, but if there's continued fighting, the bigger fish will eventually win.

In nature, this would be solved by the smaller fish leaving the area, but in captive environment, the "looser" would not have enough space to escape far enough.

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Mats

[Genieworx]

Hi Mats,

You have my thanks again. Currently the Raph has relocated to some bogwood at the other end of the tank, so the fighting has ceased. I'll get some Melafix tomorrow and see if I can't establish a new house for the Raph. The Chubby seldom leaves his cave so I'm hoping a new home will keep my tank peaceful.

Cheers

Paul

[MatsP]

Ok, I really meant separate to another tank (or a partition wall in the tank if you haven't got another tank). Chances are that the chubby will think the entire tank is his territory, and anyone even remotely seeming to threaten this will be treated with "suitable action", i.e. beaten up...

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Mats

[Genieworx]

Sorry Mats as usual not thinking in the right scale. I'll update as I go.

Cheers

Paul