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Hi ...Im sure your beta male will turn into the alpha male........with the absents of the original a male

My apha male used to be a beta. These two were the first ones I bought, and when I introduced four more fish, bought as females - which two of them turned out to be - the alpha just went haywire. He abused every fish in sight, sat himself in the center of the tank and attacked everything on sight.

I had to remove him, and after that the group settled with a ranking order they all could live with, with the beta as the alpha.

I would hang onto the Alpha male and part with the Beta if you have to. IMO he is more likely to be a good breeder he already appears to have made his intentions quite clear. Generally speaking nature favours the more dominant males as the good breeders as they are more likely to ensure the survival of the species.

Slightly off topic, my father use to keep and breed bantam chickens when I was a kid. He had about 5 breeding pairs, there was this one particular cockerel that was a real vicious little bugger. He turned out to be the best breeder regardless of which female he mated with, he fathered twice as many chicks as the others.

I know that we are talking about totally different species here but I'm pretty sure that natures law of natural selection still applies, you get my drift?

You're right on the money there. Talk about stating intentions and getting down to business. I keep a dwarf cackatoo in the tank with those two and one night I noticed two large patches of scales missing from the little bugger's head. For a day or so I wondered what had happened. Then one night I watched the alpha as he spotted the tanks oldest snail in his caves and he went into action. For no less than five minutes he pounded on that snail without mercy. Now that snail is missing an eyestock. Having seen this made me realize what happened to the cackatoo. He bumbled into that cave and had his --- handed to him. That cat is serious about his cave and I know he means to use it even if he has to drag a female in by her caudal fin.

Beyond that, the alpha has shown that he is definately the least reserved of the two. Tuesday night I held a regeme change party (too bad we didn't get any). With nearly ten people in my living room he came out into plain view with absolutely nothing to look for. He sits and watches my girlfriend and I as if it were his own personal tank. He's a keeper.

Prune Tracy wrote: Tuesday night I held a regeme change party (too bad we didn't get any).

Sorry you didn't get the regime change that you were looking for, looks like you're stuck with the current dictatorship for another 4 years. I think most of the freeworld were hinging their bets on a regime change too.