Kribs vs. egg-snatchers....

BOTTOM LINE FIRST: I'd like to give my Kribs every opportunity to breed in my
community tank. Which of the following make POOR tank mates (from the kribs'
perspective), especially in terms of raiding eggs from kribs?:

My guess is the following are probably ok w/ the kribs: Guppies, Swordtails,
Mollies, zebras, Neons, Cherry barbs, cories, glass cats, hatchet fish, angels,
dwarf gouramis, 8" pl*co

I'm suspicious of the following: Pictus cat, 5" black ghost knife, raphael
cat, clown loaches. Your advice please?

DETAILS & RAMBLINGS (long & a bit tedious): Most of the above mix is in a 120
gal planted tank. I love each & every fish, but the kribs are my favs --
they're a delightful pair, going everywhere together & dancing nicely for each
other.

Mr. K is a great gorgeous bully gent, most diligent in his patrols of his
designated territory. He seems especially suspicious of cories & gouramis, and
absolutely loathes the pictus. He find it necessary to give one of the
gouramis a vigourous thrashing periodically, which seems to greatly enhance his
virility (Mr. K, not the gourami). The d.g. will give Mr. K a couple of good
rounds, then retreat to the corner, finding a smaller fish to nip at during his
withdrawal as if to say "and that's what I WOULD have done if he hadn't sucker
punched me". No fins are shredded, no blood spilt, and neither party seems
much worse for the wear, so I mark it down to boys-will-be-boys. Mr. K is more
or less king of the tank, eager to challenge fish slightly bigger than him,
ignoring most of those smaller, and with the discretion not to tackle the much
larger BGK or pl*co head on.

The Mrs. is lovely, demure, and dedicated to the Mr. She is more shy, staying
close to home or accompanying Mr. K on his rounds, willingly holding his coat
while he kicks some gourami ass. While rather timid in the tank at large, she
is vehement in her defense of her personal quarters. A couple times Mrs. K has
plumped up, got a purple belly, and disappeared for a couple days only to
emerge from her boudoir slimmer & colored down, but with no wee ones.

Overall the tank in coexisting very pleasantly. However, I'm thinking I'll
need to rework it a bit in the near future. The angels (whose wide-eyed
curiosity sort of reminds me of the Blue Man Group) are growing at an alarming
rate, and I've been helpfully advised by this forum that the BGK is likely to
wake up at some point & realize he's living in a smorgaboard.

I'm thinking about splitting into two tanks, larger in one, smaller in the
other. In addition to the angels an BGK, other candidates for the larger tank
would be the pictus and the mollies. The female molly, Tina, is a fat beautiful
fish, but an absolute glutton and bee-yotch, living on the dual philosphies
that 1) all the food in the tank belongs to her, and 2) when absolutely forced
to choose between eating & chasing other fish away from food, chasing away
takes priority.

In the reshuffling, a top priority would be making life nice for the kribs.
I've already ejected clown loaches (who, altho delightful, just seem like egg
snatchers to me and are eager to explore the dark recesses the kribs settle in)
and the raphael cat (who also likes dark hidey holes and is so oblivious to
everything that he doesn't realize when he's being heroically ejected by Mr. K,
and tends to just sit there in the dark absorbing the abuse).

I'm also given to understand that sometimes, in a remarkable demonstration of
protective parenting, kribs will eat their eggs or young to save them from real
or imagined threats. Since their current favorite cave is in a corner of the
tank that sees a lot of human walk-by traffic (if you can call teenagers
human), maybe that's the explanation for their lack of offspring. I may move
the K's to a tank in a less traveled area.

Anyway, your suggestions for optimum tank-mates would be most appreciated.

And, no, I don't think I tend to anthropomophize one bit, why do you ask? --
Jim

"OldTownSta" wrote in message
...
BOTTOM LINE FIRST: I'd like to give my Kribs every opportunity to
breed in my
community tank. Which of the following make POOR tank mates (from the
kribs'
perspective), especially in terms of raiding eggs from kribs?:

My guess is the following are probably ok w/ the kribs: Guppies,
Swordtails,
Mollies, zebras, Neons, Cherry barbs, cories, glass cats, hatchet fish,
angels,
dwarf gouramis, 8" pl*co

I'm suspicious of the following: Pictus cat, 5" black ghost knife,
raphael
cat, clown loaches. Your advice please?
snip

The fry will be relatively safe with the Corys (certainly as soon as they
are free-swimming), the Hatchetfish (by the time they get to that
height... they will never get to that height of the tank), Neons (don't
have the equipment, after the fry are a few weeks old), the Pleco
(similar to comment for Neons) and the Dwarf gouramis. Everyone else has
motive and capability, if the fry were unguarded, and night time is a
tough time for parents to see their fry to protect them.

Guppies, Swordtails (even more) and Mollies (especially) roam the tank
and are well trained to chase new fry (usually their own).

Zebras are just fast, and if they catch sight of unguarded fry, it won't
take them long.

Cherry barbs might surprise you, especially as they like poking around
the underbrush.

Glass cats can be very active eaters, exploring what fits and doesn't.

Angels are piscivorous carnivores (meaning the meat they usually eat is
fish).

Pictus are the Hoovers of the fishworld, using their many barbels to
shovel food and fry in.

The BGK would enjoy them at many different sizes.

In theory your Raphael should chow down, but I've never seen a Raphael
catfish actually move before ;~)

Loaches would definitely be a problem, but a diminishing one as the fry
gained mobility and speed, if there was shelter around.

If something is eating their eggs now, my money would be on the Raphael.
Few fish could comfortably dine on caviar while getting pummeled by Mr &
Mrs K.

The best place for the couple is a 10 or 20g on their own, call it the
honeymoon suite.

And, no, I don't think I tend to anthropomophize one bit, why do you
ask? --

I'd never even think of asking ;~)

NetMax

Jim

Thanks for the advice NM & Red, it makes sense... I suspect at some point in
time I'll give the K's a 20 gal w/ mebbe a few relatively benign suitemates
just to keep their lives interesting. -- Jim