Tommy Gunnz
Fish Crazy
Honestly, I dont think that food typically matters to one fish or another as a reason for them to get more or less aggressive based upon a diet that you offer them. This would really only pertain to carnivors when trying to get them to only eat frozen or flake foods rather than live foods since offering live foods once a fish is weened onto flake or frozen will basically put it back to square one. You should almost always try to vary the foods you feed to any of your fish in order to maintain a good healthy diet that covers every need of your fish.
Yellow labs are always labeled as being semi-aggressive and many people put two and two together and believe that this means they are on the same aggression level as semi-aggressive community fish. This is not always true and the semi-aggressive label is a comparison between yellow labs and other cichlids. There are a couple of good cichlids that are well mannered enough to fit into a community tank as well...Rams/Butterfly cichlids are a good example of this.
HOWEVER, you absolutely CAN put yellow labs and even any smaller african cichlid in a tank with SOME community fish. In my cichlid tank (all yellow labs by the way), I also have 8 large tiger barbs, a rainbow shark and a pleco. In fact, I also used to keep clown loaches in that tank as well. The trick is to get a community fish that is very ACTIVE, very FAST swimming, and very adept to SCHOOLING with others of the same species. Many people use tiger barbs, giant danios, mollies, and even silver dollars as 'dither fish' to distract cichlid's attention to make sure it has ample targets to unleash aggression on. Essentially, the more fish in a tank, the more the aggression can be spread out, reducing the problem's effects. And yes, I have used tiger barbs as dither fish for even the most aggressive africans such as M. Auratus, P. Kennyi, and Johanni. The biggest time for concern is when a male is looking to mate or when a female is holding since this brings out the worst in them.
Yellow labs are always labeled as being semi-aggressive and many people put two and two together and believe that this means they are on the same aggression level as semi-aggressive community fish. This is not always true and the semi-aggressive label is a comparison between yellow labs and other cichlids. There are a couple of good cichlids that are well mannered enough to fit into a community tank as well...Rams/Butterfly cichlids are a good example of this.
HOWEVER, you absolutely CAN put yellow labs and even any smaller african cichlid in a tank with SOME community fish. In my cichlid tank (all yellow labs by the way), I also have 8 large tiger barbs, a rainbow shark and a pleco. In fact, I also used to keep clown loaches in that tank as well. The trick is to get a community fish that is very ACTIVE, very FAST swimming, and very adept to SCHOOLING with others of the same species. Many people use tiger barbs, giant danios, mollies, and even silver dollars as 'dither fish' to distract cichlid's attention to make sure it has ample targets to unleash aggression on. Essentially, the more fish in a tank, the more the aggression can be spread out, reducing the problem's effects. And yes, I have used tiger barbs as dither fish for even the most aggressive africans such as M. Auratus, P. Kennyi, and Johanni. The biggest time for concern is when a male is looking to mate or when a female is holding since this brings out the worst in them.
