Do Caves Make Mbuna Fight More Or Less

[odannyboy]

read on a cichlid site that mbuna will fight "over cave teritory" is this stricktly true? i thought it was territory full stop? should there be a cave potentially for every fish? or a few? whats best? what happens as they outgrow the caves?cheers!

 

[Ferris]

It can be a catch 22 - Most Mbuna like to have a "safe place" they can retreat to when neccessary - usually a cave. However a cave gives them a specific territory area to fight over, which can be a problem.

The easy answer is to ensure that there is more caves/hidey holes than there is fish - that said, you may find one of your Mbuna claims around 5 caves like my Hongi does.

 

[dthoffsett]

It can be a catch 22 - Most Mbuna like to have a "safe place" they can retreat to when neccessary - usually a cave. However a cave gives them a specific territory area to fight over, which can be a problem.

The easy answer is to ensure that there is more caves/hidey holes than there is fish - that said, you may find one of your Mbuna claims around 5 caves like my Hongi does.

I know what you mean Ferris, my dominate m.callainos (who is the king of the tank) has taken the entire tank behind the rocks as his territory, he over did it because he spends so much time chasing different fish out, he never gets time to relax.

Odannyboy, like Ferris said, as long as you have tons of caves there shouldn't be a problem, IME an empty tank causes more problems as inevitably a dominate fish will claim half the tank as his and all of the other fish will be crowded in a corner with no where to hide and nothing to break the line of sight.