Handling Aggression.

[SAChichlidLover]

Hey everyone how are you all?
Anyways I know quite a few people who have fish that are aggressive towards each other or just simply mixed the wrong fish and then theres me who decided to mix central and south american cichlids (turned out to be a success however in alot of cases it wouldnt have) I wanted to create a thread where I can share my experience with this, help anyone who needs it with this topic and I wanted to try and learn some new techniques with this aswell!
As most of you know I keep a pretty controversial fish tank which is my mixed cichlids tank.. Now at first this tank started out fantastic then when the fish settled some became more aggressive than others (For example my two gold severums used to constantly spat at feeding time with the larger one almost always pushing the other one out the way) the way I dealt with it was actually super simple and probably again quite controversial, I added in dither fish (schooling fish such as tetras) and after a few days there was no more issues with the severums. Next issue with aggression (which is ongoing) is my bolivian rams, I made a pretty big mistake adding dwarfs into a large cichlid tank which I was unaware of completely untill you guys helped me! (Thank you @Colin_T and @Wills ) so to deal with this? Well I'm using a backup plan which is to simply move them into a new tank where they don't constantly try and define a territory. Now my actual nightmare.. I impulsively bought two firemouth cichlids who at first destroyed the little balance I had going on and doing this I learned so much about why new world cichlids should stick to south america and central america (the firemouths are the only central americans in there) I didn't actually deal with this one because after a day they both settled down and don't bother anything unless the heckelii come to close to a little rocky area they like to defend which even then only a one second chase occurs and then both fish just get back to swimming peacefully. So I did get extremely lucky in this case as I have kept firemouths before and well I think we all know how that went. What is you're experiences handling fish aggression? Is there any important lessons that you think is worth being mentioned? This hobby is the best hobby because of the lessons, rewards and the beautiful animals being happy in our care even if we do make mistakes we can always reverse it or get past it and learn alot!

 

[FishGuest5123]

Sometimes, just moving plants and decor around is enough to stop any hiarchy as the fish feel they are in new surroundings.

 

[Wills]

Hmmm this is an interesting one and its going to be a personal one depending on the keeper. Not too sure on where to start but this seems the right bit. Sorry folks its going to be a long one....

Souths vs centrals - I find most Centrals on average to be more predatory than the average South, by which I mean their physiology is caterd more towards grabing food in mid water whether that be bugs, fry, shrimp etc so their mouths are typically facing forward on the front of their head. In contrast Souths on average I would say have more underslung mouths that are used for finding food in substrate or around roots/rocks etc. Centrals are often more streamlined in their shape where as the number of disk shaped fish in Souths is much greater, giving Centrals a natural advantage in speed and ability to live in more turbulent waters. Souths tend to live in really diverse biotopes with an abundance of species of all kind of sizes big and small, top and bottom, fish around them and under them, they go through dry seasons where living quarters get very very cramped and they've learned to live like this. In contrast Centrals live in pretty un-diverse wide open lakes and rivers you dont get the tiny fish of the souths, they live with a lot of other cichlids, big catfish, big nippy characins and livebearers - its a generally tougher environment to survive. If you try and put a central biotope together it gets very flat very quick where as with souths there are so many options and putting centrals into that mix is probably pretty alien for them. Centrals seem more inteligent with their aggression as well, Souths are aggressive and territorial often for a purpose like breeding or just their space in the tank, Centrals more often than not seem to have a long term strategy and go for the same fish where ever they are in the tank. But these reasons are why I dont like mixing Souths and Centrals, when you look at it there are just too many reasons why it could go wrong. None of this is backed up but just reflections on why I think I've made mistakes with the combinations I've kept in the past.

I'm not sure I'd call your tank controversial because its really a transitional tank, you know you cant keep all those fish in there long term and we've spoken about more tanks, bigger tanks etc. I think your problem is that you keep impulse buying lol I know Colin mentioned about the Rams and the Threadfins but it was the Rams and the Firemouths I was worried about, I kept a Threadfin with some Cupids for 4-5 years so I wasnt too worried about Threadfins around dwarfs. I think with your Fire Mouths if things are ok now thats good but in about 6 months time your fish are going to start to come into maturity and you will likely see a different side to a couple of fish that you probably need to be prepared for.

The best way to mitegate aggression is to plan for it know the territorial limits of your tank. Don't risk it, if a combination feels like it could be 50/50 don't do it. Don't allow pairs unless you are prepared for breeding. Learn to appreciate non cichlid species, I like cichlids for their behaviour, their colour and often their rarity but for example I've spent hours the last few weeks reading about rare Rainbow Fish and working out where I could (theoretically) get them from. There are some awesome lake specific Bosemani Rainbows that I want (theoretically) and would do great in a Central American tank (theoretically).

I think that the art for me with Cichlids trying to come up with long term combinations rather than trying something to see if it works and sometimes people need to go through the journey of finding some of that out, I know I did, I learned about souths vs centrals from a very knowledgable keeper that I met on a forum and was fortunate to meet, loved his tanks and fish but didnt listen until I realised I should have...

Bit rambly now but hopefully some of it makes sense and hopefully some of it even helps.

Wills

 

[SAChichlidLover]

Sometimes, just moving plants and decor around is enough to stop any hiarchy as the fish feel they are in new surroundings.

That is very very true, shifting things always seems to at least have an effect

 

[SAChichlidLover]

Hmmm this is an interesting one and its going to be a personal one depending on the keeper. Not too sure on where to start but this seems the right bit. Sorry folks its going to be a long one....

Souths vs centrals - I find most Centrals on average to be more predatory than the average South, by which I mean their physiology is caterd more towards grabing food in mid water whether that be bugs, fry, shrimp etc so their mouths are typically facing forward on the front of their head. In contrast Souths on average I would say have more underslung mouths that are used for finding food in substrate or around roots/rocks etc. Centrals are often more streamlined in their shape where as the number of disk shaped fish in Souths is much greater, giving Centrals a natural advantage in speed and ability to live in more turbulent waters. Souths tend to live in really diverse biotopes with an abundance of species of all kind of sizes big and small, top and bottom, fish around them and under them, they go through dry seasons where living quarters get very very cramped and they've learned to live like this. In contrast Centrals live in pretty un-diverse wide open lakes and rivers you dont get the tiny fish of the souths, they live with a lot of other cichlids, big catfish, big nippy characins and livebearers - its a generally tougher environment to survive. If you try and put a central biotope together it gets very flat very quick where as with souths there are so many options and putting centrals into that mix is probably pretty alien for them. Centrals seem more inteligent with their aggression as well, Souths are aggressive and territorial often for a purpose like breeding or just their space in the tank, Centrals more often than not seem to have a long term strategy and go for the same fish where ever they are in the tank. But these reasons are why I dont like mixing Souths and Centrals, when you look at it there are just too many reasons why it could go wrong. None of this is backed up but just reflections on why I think I've made mistakes with the combinations I've kept in the past.

I'm not sure I'd call your tank controversial because its really a transitional tank, you know you cant keep all those fish in there long term and we've spoken about more tanks, bigger tanks etc. I think your problem is that you keep impulse buying lol I know Colin mentioned about the Rams and the Threadfins but it was the Rams and the Firemouths I was worried about, I kept a Threadfin with some Cupids for 4-5 years so I wasnt too worried about Threadfins around dwarfs. I think with your Fire Mouths if things are ok now thats good but in about 6 months time your fish are going to start to come into maturity and you will likely see a different side to a couple of fish that you probably need to be prepared for.

The best way to mitegate aggression is to plan for it know the territorial limits of your tank. Don't risk it, if a combination feels like it could be 50/50 don't do it. Don't allow pairs unless you are prepared for breeding. Learn to appreciate non cichlid species, I like cichlids for their behaviour, their colour and often their rarity but for example I've spent hours the last few weeks reading about rare Rainbow Fish and working out where I could (theoretically) get them from. There are some awesome lake specific Bosemani Rainbows that I want (theoretically) and would do great in a Central American tank (theoretically).

I think that the art for me with Cichlids trying to come up with long term combinations rather than trying something to see if it works and sometimes people need to go through the journey of finding some of that out, I know I did, I learned about souths vs centrals from a very knowledgable keeper that I met on a forum and was fortunate to meet, loved his tanks and fish but didnt listen until I realised I should have...

Bit rambly now but hopefully some of it makes sense and hopefully some of it even helps.

Wills

Haha this is why I love your long paragraphs because your the cichlid keeper I look up too
Anyways with your findings of centrals being more predatory is extremely true as they are not only speedy fish but in general seem to be the more aggressive side of new world cichlids, with my firemouths on the first day they became the bosses and one of them was extremely stressed! My souths are constantly foraging for food in the substrate whereas the firemouths are constantly mid level and are pretty aggressive feeders aswell (they dont attack anything but they are the first fish to get to the food, even the tetras arent as quick!) I really feel bad for breaking the tanks biotope by adding alien species as the south american fish all seem so confused when an 8 inch catfish swims out of nowhere and paces the tank looking for its food and being greedy and eating everyone elses leftovers haha. I really wish I didn't impulse buy but thats something I need to work on As we've talked about the threadfins, tetras, syno and possibly the sevs are going to be the longterm tank members and I'm hoping to set up a tank based around the firemouths when they get large and most probably malicious. I love cichlids too, just everything about them and they are the reason my impulse buying and mts is getting quite bad hahaha. Thanks again Wills all you're advice has helped so far