African Electric Cichlid & Pinktale Shark

[jeremyp]

alright first of all I am totally new to the fish scene, just got my aquarium running last week and have put 2 baby fish in it.

one is a African Cichlid and the other is a baby pinktale shark.
the pet store person said they are both compatible and should'nt have any problems as long as they grow up together.

well the past week everything has been cool , they have both been cruising around in my 15 gallon tank and enjoying thereselves till today at around 2 pm when i got home from school and noticed just the shark was swimming around with the Cichlid no were to be found, so i was kinda thinking like maybe the shark had eatin him and i was trying to look around inside the ship I have in there and could'nt spot him. So I just waited till around 8pm tonight and there was still no sign of the Cichlid anywhere so i thought i would drop some flakes in the tank and see if the Cichlid comes swimming out of the ship or something. well sure enough after a few minutes here comes the Cichlid cruising out of the ship high speed and wips 100 mph around the tank once and grabs a flake and wips back inside the ship and never comes out again till about 9:30pm I decide to give tank a little shake and see what the heck is going on, well the Cichlid came zooming out and was swimmin along the side of the tank for a few seconds till he seen the shark come swimming up to him and then he just took off at high speed back into the ship and I can finally see him inside the ship now, looks like he is face first inside a hole in the ship.

to me it looks like the Cichlid is highly scared of the shark, which is funny because they have been fine together all week till now

the Cichlid is like a half inching big or a little bigger and the shark is about 2 inches big.


is this normal or does the shark want to eat the Cichlid?

 

[freddyk]

No the shark doesn't want to eat the cichlid, but the cichlid is scared because he's all alone in the tank as the only cichlid. Cichlids should be researched carefully and not just thrown randomly into tanks. I don't know what an African Electric is, but if you are referring to a typical 'electric blue' mbuna, then he may always be shy, all alone. You also can't put any other cichlids in with him because a 15 gallon is much too small.

 

[jeremyp]

yea i know 15 gallon is kinda small but i'm kinda on a budget at the moment. so anyways, once the Cichlid grows to be bigger will it help him not to be scared as much or what?

btw, thanks for your knowledge

 

[BrookeLea]

If you're on a budget, maybe you should buy something that you can properly care for within your budget. It just doens't make sense to choose to take a life into your hands if you can't properly care for it.

Once the cichlid grows to be bigger, he will not become less scared. His size doesn't matter to him. He really shouldn't be alone. If you're really concerned for the well-being of this fish, you should return him to the pet shop and get something a little more suitable for your tank. Look into dwarf cichlids if it's really cichlids that you want. A pair of blue rams might do ok in a 15 gallon.

 

[freddyk]

If you really want to see what cichlids have to offer you would need companions for him. Most of what cichlids have to offer (aside from neat color) has to do with their interactive behavior, which means having fish they can be interactive with.

Dwarf species are perfect for that tank - a very cheap and easy setup is Tanganyikan Shell Dwellers. Look them up on google or something and read about them - in a 15 gallon you can have them thrive properly.