Hey everyone..first post. I am worried about aggression in my FBT setup and need some advice. I was given a couple fbts about 2 months ago and had a spare 55g long so I built them a home. It's about 30% aquatic with about 4 inches of water in places and the terrestrial part is raised with sloping river rocks, coco fiber atop mesh then hydro balls and has an assortment of ferns, etc planted. I'm using two small submersible pumps at opposite ends for filtration and change 50% water every 2 weeks. There is only about 5 gallons total.

After about a week I added 4 B. Orientalis but I think the original two are European because they are very dark brown. They all seemed to get along at first but recently the first two have become very aggressive and grab onto the others trying to mate. This, in and of itself is not alarming, even the orientalis are trying to mate, but they, the darker ones, are increasingly getting more and more aggressive towards the rest and I had to separate one of them when he almost drowned another today..had a lock on her and she was flipped upside down under water yelling at him to "Let go!" I could hear the panic in her voice!

The other European has started the same behavior and I fear he may hurt or even kill the others. Is this level of aggression typical? The darker ones are a tad larger, not by much but I think enough to make it difficult to escape their death grip. Should I remove both Europeans and stick with all B. Orientalis, if indeed the others are a different sub species? Can they actually drown each other or am I worried over nothing and this is just how they get it on and I should let them be?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

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