Aulonocara being bullied

[SarahBravo]

I have 2 aulonocara nyassae, which are bigger than anything else in my malawai tank (juvie afras, labbies & blue dolphins). One is in full dominant colours and is bossy, and the other is very subdued and slightly tail shredded, and I'm noticing now that even the juvie afras are beating him up. He's hiding in the top corner of the tank, and is definately not a happy bunny. The only 2 choices I can think of are a) leaving him in there and hoping for the best b ) putting him in one of my other community tanks. would he kill the guppies or vice versa? He is waaaaay bigger than any of my community fish, about 3.5" I guess.

Would welcome any input. thanks!

Sarah

edited for that annoying b ) thing

 

[G_Sharky]

I would ship him out maybe to another african tank or back to the LFS..The reason why the afra is picking on him is because he is weaken and the afra's wanted to move up on the anarchy or the rankings....If his beaten up pretty badly then your other fish will finish him off soon..I've seen it happen before when I had mbuna's that's why i switch to a peacock and haps tank....It's also not a good mix when you have more agressive mbunas than the peacocks and haps....when the afra reaches their full size they would probably pick on the Auloconara...Just my opinion....

 

[Ferris]

Mixing Aulonacara with Mbuna can and does cause problems, I think the weaker Nyassae needs to be re-homed asap as it will only get worse with the Mbuna around. A community tank is not the answer unfortunately, he may have to go back to the LFS. Nyassae are the only Aulonacara that i have successfully kept with Mbuna but that was a single male, he was fine so it can be done.

 

[freddyk]

If you like the Aulonocara I'd suggest getting rid of the Afra's for reasons explained already. The 'labbies', if they are yellow labidochromis, are excellent tankmates for peacocks.

In addition, when you have two of the same there is likely to be aggression issues. You can fix the problem by either removing the second peacock, or adding more to distribute the aggression.