Firefish Fighting!

I have had two firefish in my 55g for about 5 months now along with some damsels, 30lb of live sand, and newly added fully cured live rock (~2 wks into the tank). Also just added a Koralia Evolution 750 (~1 wk into the tank)
My two firefish up until yesterday have been like 2 peas in a pod eating, sleeping, and swimming side by side. Now one of my firefish beats the crap out of the other. So much that underdog firefish has just a needle for a dorsal fin, along with other extremely damaged fins, and has to hide all day in order not to get beat on. I don't understand what made the antagonistic firefish click like that. Any ideas on what might have caused my firefish to become bipolar!?

 

:laughings the other firefish.

These are known to not do well in groups... It doesn't surprise me they were fine for a while... fish aren't the smartest thing, it may have only now realized it's not its reflection (j/k!!)

 

Mine just started doing the same thing yesterday. They always got along! It's sad. Sorry to hear yours are fighting too. I'm tagging along in this thread.

Good luck to you - I hope they stop soon!

 

Unless you have a mated pair of firefish, they will fight. If they haven't fought until now, it's possible that it was because they had not yet reached sexual maturity.

 

haha thanks peredhil, maybe once the underdog comes out the antagonist will go back to "just looking in a mirror". If this keeps up, do you think my LFS will take him from me? I really dont want to see this fish die slowly.

 

Same thing happened to me, mine were inseperable and then one day one attacked the other to the point where it hid under a rock for 4 days and refused to eat. The only thing I did different was to reduced the feeding a week or two previous to that. Anyway I moved some of the rock work around and went back to my old feeding habits. This was a couple of months ago the two have since made up and are together again. I hope yours "work it out"

good luck

 

I have had 2 now for about 4 months and they are like a husband and wife,,,,,,fine for a few weeks then pissed at each other for a few weeks, but mine do not beat each other up....the smaller one hides more and has plenty of hiding spaces