Female Convict

Question
Hi Karen,
Thanks for you help on Ceratin. I am giving my Red's all types of frozen food. Can i feed my cichlids liver? I just saw my aquarist feeding liver to his angels and flower horn. They seem to grow almost twice as fast as my fish. But i dont like feeding liver as the animal has to be killed to obtain the liver.

Anyway,  heres the bigger problem. My female convict is dominating and nipping my male convict. They both are alone and i feed them plenty of food everyday. There are 2 caves and 3 coconut shell caves. But still the female seems to bite my male(Brett). Brett is now swimming near the corner. I am going to remove him to a hospital tank for now. Why is my female so aggressive? There are no eggs. They both are about 2 inches in length.

  Thanks a lot for your help.

......Srinivas

Answer
Hi Srinivas,
Sounds as if you are feeding your cichlids just fine. I don't know much about liver. I've never heard about liver being fed to fish around here. Maybe it's good--maybe not. Sometimes I wonder if feeding your fish "booster" food to make them grow twice as fast as normal is healthy for them? I personally wouldn't think so. I do know beefheart is used by many aquarists because it is easy to get and makes fish grow very fast. But it's not very healthy for them. Aquarists at home shouldn't be trying to raise "the fattest hog at the fair" so to speak. But feed a quality--no growth inhancing diet to their fish. It's bad enough all the poor chickens, pigs, cows, turkeys, and ducks in factory farms whom are forced to grow to astounding sizes so much that they have health problems such as heart failure in meat chickens. It's VERY sad. But this is off the subject of fish. I appreciate your sympathy towards not wanting to use liver because of the poor animal that would have to be killed for it.
As long as your fish are doing good and are vibrant and growing at a normal rate, there is nothing wrong with what you are feeding them at the moment.~

Convicts can be vicious little critters. Sometimes the male OR female in a pair can turn on each-other. Sometimes there is no way to find a reason for it. Strange how it is the female chasing the male. Usually it's the other way around. Are you certain there are no eggs?  This is the first thing that came to mind. Oftentimes after spawning, female convicts will chase the males away, sometimes just nipping but sometimes also it can be much worse. Ceramic caves, pots, and other hiding places usually provide relief. But it may be your case that the female is being relentless. Sorry about that. You could always give her a long time to get over her 'grudge' against the male and try to re-introduce them again. But this may not work.
I'm sorry, convicts are temperamental creatures. ~

I really hope this helps! Best of luck!
Best wishes, happy fishkeeping!
Karen~