injury of my zebra

[Zebedee]

After adding my new group there has been lots of fighting which i did expect a bit of sorting out the pecking order but the new male has given injuries to the existing male i had. although they are not very visible he has a small cut on right pectoral thin and the whole front end of him is red like a bloodshot eye. it also looks like he is breathing very fast, is there anything i can do to help him recover. maybe adding some medication to the water.

[TwoTankAmin]

Sorting out the pecking order can take some time and can result in injuries and even deaths. There are really only two options. One is to leave them to it, eventually it will be worked out and you can hope nobody dies from it. The other alternative is to remove one of the two offenders. Of course this leaves you with a lone male unless you then remove a female or two to go with him.

One thing that will help minimize potential injuries and deaths is to have sufficient space with a lot of cover. This allows the "losers" to flee and hide safely.

Once the colony gets itself sorted out, do not add more fish and disrupt the balance.

[Zebedee]

i have altered the tank slightly as they were mainly all hanging around the bottom left hand side. i'm wondering only a couple of caves are actually occupied is this just because the fish are sorting out there pecking order and then they will start to take there territory on the caves after. Is there anything you think i might do to my setup to help things out
tank now:

[TwoTankAmin]

I learned what I consider to be a key piece of information when designing a good setup for a zebra tank right here at zp.com on the articles page under "Habitat".

The floor of the xingu is primerily made up of rounded rocks, crevises and a sandy substrate, allowing the hypancistrus zebra to travel throughout it's territory under cover from preditors.

I think there is more to it than just shelter from predators. It also means that when zebras spar and one needs to flee, it can do so easily and end up someplace away from the fight and under cover.

As I have posted many times in various forums, I never know how many zebras I have because I can only ever see them all by totally breaking down the tank to just glass. I would bet I keep more river rocks, pieces of wood as well as caves in a zebra tank than many zebra keepers. This has made it more work to do tank maint., to spot fish and to remove them when the time comes. But the payoff has been a healthy productive breeding community.

Cover is not only important for the adults, but for the fry as well. The fry will always seek shelter in the tightest spaces where other larger zebs can not fit.

The upshot of all this is it is my feeling that your tank setup is way to sparsely configured in terms of cover. Rememebr, cover is not merely caves., it is also nooks and hidey holes into which the fish can retreat and be safe.

[Zebedee]

this morning i noticed my original male before adding the new group looked worse he had lost his stripes yesterday but he was keeping inside a cave quite a lot so i thought things might be ok. so i decided that i would remove him and keep him on his own for a bit to see if he would recover better by himself. i also added lots more slate to give more nooks and crannys for the fish to hide. here is the poor little boy it almost brought a tear to my eye seing how bad he looks and feeling guilty as i was the one who added the group to the tank. is there anything i can do to help him i feel so gutted.



the tank now

[Joby]

Oh bless the poor little chap

Hope he gets back to full stripiness soon

[Irene0100]

Hi, I would add some melafix. this is a natural plant extract rather than chemicals and it promotes healing and prevents infection.

Also when you release him back into the tank, change the position of the caves and slates, so to break up existing territory, otherwise he will walk straight back into another fight.