Grrr Argg

[Binge]

So My tank was doing fine for about a month and now some one in the tank ( cant figure out who) has become crazy aggressive and I am down 4-6 ciclids.
The 55 gallon tank did include

8 yellow labs
4 acai(all dead)
3 pseudotrophus succofli(down 1)
2 metacroma(SP?)(1 hurt)

suddenly a week ago I started seeing torn fins and fish torn up so bad that I couldnt save them with melafix. So far I am down all 4 acai my male succofli(he was my tank boss i thaught) and now one of my metacroma has a torn up eye and his side is gouged all to heck. I am assuming it is the yellows I just cant figure out why. The tank has loads of caves they are typicly fed twice a day and I have not realy seen anyone claiming any territory in the tank as a breeding ground. They are all just milling about when ever I look at the tank inter mingling just fine (except whom ever is hurt). So I am at a loss.... is there anything I can do to calm them down I dont have another tank to move them to for permanant living and I realy do not want a tank of nothing but yellows. Any suggestions would be great.

 

[rifty]

in my experience yellow labs can go very agressive what size tank do you have them in and what sort of layout do you have? ie lots of rock etc

 

[locust267]

How old were all the fish and were they added at the same time?

Hope you've had no more deaths

 

[Binge]

The tank is a 55 gallon with around 20+ slate caves in it covering half the back wall and both sides of the tank. So far I have not lost anymore. Half of them started in the tank and half got added over the last 8 weeks. The acais, half of the yellows, and 2 female succofli were new in that period of time but were all added in groups. I just dont want a tank of nothing but yellows. I may swap em to a LFS for credit and restart the tank. All of the fish are 3+ inches so I can probably get a fair chunk out of them as I supply the store with lobsters/guppys and mollys for credit already

 

[Squidward]

This is part of keeping Malawis unfortunately
When I had Mbuna, my 2 female labs got it in for each other and one ended up getting killed. And I was led to beleive they were supposed to be calmer Cichlids. And the male was pretty aggro too

 

[Binge]

Well the metacroma is hding and healing since he just had the eye injury he seems to be doing well. I may try and swap the labs to get somthing a little less nippy. I thaught the numbers would help keep em in check but ah well.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

I think its part of cichlids...not just malawis. I have a Jewel Cichlid that is in her very own 55g. She was in a tank with some severums, but she was not fond of company. Turns out that the LFS made a mistake in telling me they were compatible, which surprises me as the LFS I go to is run by hobbyists. Well, she has her own tank now, which I am looking in to adding Mbunas as they seem to be the only fish that can keep a jewel in check....this chick be trippin!! But she is such a neat little fish.

 

[Malawi MaD]

The labs are dominating the tank which is why they are been so aggressive, mbuna are more 'open' shall we say when in larger groups. So the dominant fish will have more confidence meaning more bullying. If you had 2 species in large groups or 3 to 4 species with equal numbers things should sort itself out. Mbuna can suddenly have hissy fits and go of the rail's usually resulting in a death (which cant be stopped unfortunately) but stocking the right species and numbers can sometime prevent this from happening

 

[Binge]

I had em about equal at one point but peopel told me yellows are less aggressive in a group of 8ish so thats what I shot for . I may keep trying to find a balance but it is frustrateing as ciclid prices here are rather wallet painful. (two succofli with a discount were 16 dollars.) So getting matching numbers for the tank in one swoop would be painfull. I may swap my yellows as a whole to my LFS for a filter.(my fluval c4 got fried in a power outage regardless of the surge protector....) So my 75 is slightly under filtered at the moment. 8 3.5 -5 inchish yellows swapped at 8-10 bucks a piece could snag me a nice filter. I could do the succofli ane metacromas tom if neccesary.

My wife seems to like the peacocks and haps a lot more then the mbuna and they do seemt o be more colorful fish. Are they less aggressive by chance? justb trying to explore my options again

 

[rifty]

hap and peacocks are similar in agression within there own type
if you want colour and little agression co all male peacock
this is a guy called robs tank and was a main inspiration for me getting into malawis

http/www.ratemyfishtank.com/friendemail.php/24129