Aggressive elephant nose

Question
Hello,
My name is Mellany. I am an American living in Holland for almost 5 years now. About 7 months ago I decided to set up and maintain an aquarium. I have a 70 liter tank with live plants, black, fine gravel. In the tank I have one siamese fighting fish, 5 rummy nosed tetra, 2 corydoras jullii and 2 elephant nose fish. I did quite a bit of reading on the internet about elephant nose fish before purchasing them. At the pet shop, against my better judgement and after reading all that information, I bought two fish at the same time. The store owner said having two elephant nose fish would not hurt anything and they would settle in after a few days. One of them is very aggressive to the other one. I am worried that he will become stressed or something. I bought a house that one could hide in and the other hides under some plants. The aggressive one has taken over the house and the plant. I then had a friend cut a piece of pipe for me so the non-aggressive one could hide in it. Guess what..the aggressive one has taken that over as well. What should I do? I can not take him back to the store and I don't know anyone with an aquarium or I would give one away. I make sure they have plenty of food. Also I might mention that my betta looks a bit shabby..guess the aggressive one tried to bully him too but it didn't work. Blue(my betta) stands his ground and is not intimidated by the elephant nose. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Sincerely,
Mellany, stressed in Holland!!

Answer
Hi Mellany;

Poor guys! If you can't take the aggressive one somewhere else, he needs his own tank. He will eventually kill the other elephant nose because they are very terretorial with their own kind. He is probably nipping the betta at night. EN are active at night (nocturnal) while the betta is sleeping so he will kill him too.  

Personally, I am always looking for an excuse for a new tank, so go for it! ;-)

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