PlanetCatfish.com

I decided to put a second female I have in another tank in with my large male and the other female. That lasted for all of about 2 minutes. The resident female found the "intruder" and they started to battle. Flailing their heads and tails around with horns fully extended. Needless to say I didn't want to find one dead so I removed the inturder. My resident female has been more than obilging with the male but he doesn't seem to be interested.

The questions: is this normal behavior or should I keep them apart? Is this what I need to do in order to get them to spawn? Do I need a second male in order to coerce the males to be more receptive to the female? I know pretty much everything else I need to in order to get them to breed. I really need to know the best ratio of male to female and how to deal with the battling and if there is anything to worry about as far as injury or worse, death to one or both.

I really want to breed them and this seems to be my last hurdle to get them to do so. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Let's start from the back: From my own and what I've read, you shouldn't have more than one male in a breeding setup - it just makes the males fight about who gets the best cave, rather than breed...

It's normal for females to fight a bit, but yours sounds like they were having a real catfight (pun not intended). I haven't seen this, but I'm sure it can happen.

I've said it several times before, and I'll probably have to say it again and again...
Breeding any fish is often a matter of patience. Don't mess with them too much, don't try to change things (unless you really feel that you're stuck), just make sure you keep them well fed, clean water and in a setup that allows them to breed, and it will happen sooner or later.

--
Mats

just like people huh

I had 4 females in a 4' tank with no male and one of the females decided after over 2 months together to become very aggressive with the other 3 females, one still has scars but the other two died from the wounds inflicted on them over night.

As far as breeding goes be patient, I have had a pair together now for nearly 18 month and they did nothing until 6 weeks ago when the laid a clutch of eggs, the fry are now in a growing out tank and they have laid a second lot of eggs yesterday. The only change I have made is to alter the temperature down slightly and they now seem happy at 75'F.