I always get nasty bully fish

[Guyb93]

Ok two of my geophagus are dead !! Unsurprisingly the big one is still at large , they were a group as geos are but something has happened and I’m pretty sure it’s down to the other geo in my tank my water is on point other everything is what it should be checked temp it’s firm at 27c , would a male kill other males to ensure the female is his to breed I don’t know , there deaths must be stress related as there were. No obvious damage to the fish , the two that are left is the largest one and the smallest one I’m guessing male and female it’s just the smallest looks like she isn’t interested and seems stressed and looks like she is living in fear .. what do I do , @Wills

 

[Fish4dawin]

Ok two of my geophagus are dead !! Unsurprisingly the big one is still at large , they were a group as geos are but something has happened and I’m pretty sure it’s down to the other geo in my tank my water is on point other everything is what it should be checked temp it’s firm at 27c , would a male kill other males to ensure the female is his to breed I don’t know , there deaths must be stress related as there were. No obvious damage to the fish , the two that are left is the largest one and the smallest one I’m guessing male and female it’s just the smallest looks like she isn’t interested and seems stressed and looks like she is living in fear .. what do I do , @Wills

Where they all at peace before?

It might be some sort of territorial act.

 

[Guyb93]

Where they all at peace before?

It might be some sort of territorial act.

So so for a group of cichlids yes they were getting on as well as I could expect but one has grew a lot faster than others did and started to bully them , I’m thinking not so much territory as my key holes are half there size and would take much to evict them from there home they are second to only my eba so they get run of the territory really , it confuses me are geophagus are supposed to do better in groups than solitary

 

[Wills]

We have said before that there are a lot of cichlids in your tank. I’m really surprised two have gone though without injury as well. Just because you have added fish recently are you 100% you are disease free? Did the dead fish have any white patches on them?

 

[Guyb93]

We have said before that there are a lot of cichlids in your tank. I’m really surprised two have gone though without injury as well. Just because you have added fish recently are you 100% you are disease free? Did the dead fish have any white patches on them?

Im as sure as I can be there’s no disease in there , there were no white patches no ripped fins no red gills , I almost thought they were just lying funny until they didn’t move for the net , I get tht there is a lot of cichlids in the tank but I honestly feared for the smaller keyholes and 1 inch sev rather than the geos , if not diseased which I’m sure it’s not tht , could it just be simply over stocked and they are making room ?

 

[Wills]

They are all going to be pumping our hormones and electrical signals in territorial ways that will add to the stress but I’ve never known it kill fish that quickly you can usually tell stressed cichlids with lots of bars and clamped fins but not seen these in your recent pics which is why I’m wondering about disease - I had a really bad breakout of columnaris in my cichlid tank a few years ago and I lost a few fish before I knew what was going on I lost a chocolate cichlid and 4 geos and it was only one geo and the choc that showed the tell tale white patch on the top of the tail. But I don’t know if it’s safe to assume that for this tank it is disease and start dosing

 

[Guyb93]

They are all going to be pumping our hormones and electrical signals in territorial ways that will add to the stress but I’ve never known it kill fish that quickly you can usually tell stressed cichlids with lots of bars and clamped fins but not seen these in your recent pics which is why I’m wondering about disease - I had a really bad breakout of columnaris in my cichlid tank a few years ago and I lost a few fish before I knew what was going on I lost a chocolate cichlid and 4 geos and it was only one geo and the choc that showed the tell tale white patch on the top of the tail. But I don’t know if it’s safe to assume that for this tank it is disease and start dosing

Would dosing be safe even if there’s nothing there , I often use my corys as a sign of something bad as they seem to drop like rain , non of my fish have any white patches , my eba have just laid eggs again, it’s my weekly water change tomorrow would you advise a 100% water change and deep clean of the substrate? I don’t want to over do it and cause a cycle .. only other thing I can think off is the night before they died I did feed them locust lave and it seem to be only the geos that ate them , would food outright kill them or just make them sick

 

[Guyb93]

These are the remaining two