Tankmates having trouble

[RW]

Ack, I had to separate one of my male pairs last night because they kept trying to get into a fight. I sat over their tank with a big plastic s-p-o-o-n (sorry for the spelling--the auto-censor doesn't like the word s-p-o-o-n) for over an hour, separating them with it every time they tried to mix it up, but I ended up putting the divider in their tank around 1:00AM so I could go to bed. Far from settling down over the time I watched them, they kept getting more and more agitated, to the point where every time one got near the other, they were facing off, nose-to-nose, with both of their tails lashing and a couple of times one or the other jumped his tankmate. No injuries and they never quite got into a ball before I could get them separated. It didn't seem that one or the other was being the aggressor, more like they were both ready to get serious.

They're unrelated males who have been together for 3 months and have gotten along well. The older boy is a year old and the younger is 4 months. The younger one is dominant and a bit on the high-strung side, but before last night I had never seen any aggressive behavior from the older male at all, ever. I'm pretty sure the trouble started because they had just gotten their tank cleaned, which they both hate, but it was a standard tank cleaning, no new toys, etc., only stuff they already had that had been washed.

This morning, the older male doesn't seem upset at all by the split (he's been sleeping), but the younger one is really not happy at all. I'm debating whether to try putting them back together later today, if the younger one settles down.

I've never had this situation before, so I'm just wondering if anyone has successfully re-introduced a pair like this and if 12 hours or so is long enough to have kept them separated?

RW

[lizzy]

Just a question, how big is the tank? (gallons?)

[RW]

They're in a 20-gallon long, 30" x 12".

RW

[RyanF]

There are only 2 boys in their right? 20 gallons is large for 2 gerbils, and they may have made their own territories in the large space. Maybe split caging them and then moving them to a 10 or 15 gallon would help.

[RW]

Thanks for the replies.

Yep, Ryan, it was just the two boys together. I've always kept my pairs in 20Ls without any problem, but every pair's different, so who knows, you could be right.

My young boy finally settled down enough yesterday afternoon to try a re-introduction. Wow, I've never seen anything go bad so fast. I mean, the younger boy didn't even smell his former tankmate, just pounced him immediately. My husband was helping me and, even with the two of us, we had an awful time getting them apart because they were rolling around in a ball all over the tank. I finally got my spoon between them and my husband got his plastic cup over the younger boy, scooped him up, and put him in their playpen.

Thankfully, no one got hurt. For now, we've left the older boy in the 20L tank and moved the younger boy into a spare 29-gallon, until we decide what we're going to do.

RW