Overly Aggressive Cichlid!

[Boston-Celtic]

Hey everyone. So I have a 55 gallon tank at home thats home to a combination of about 13 haps and peacocks. I had noticed that one of my cichlids had nipped fins and bruises on his body due to aggression and fighting between it and other fish. I would add Melafix to help with the injuries and fines and would recover but then end of the same. After about a week that same fish that would get bruised up was dead. I am almost certain that it was due to more fighting and aggression by the dominant cichlid in my tank. After this incident I ended taking out that aggressive dominant cichlid and isolated him in another tank. I tried moving decorations around often to reset territories, adding more fish to disperse aggression, but for some reason this fish had a certain bone to pick with the one that it killed. The dominant fish that I took out was about 4-5 inches while the majority where about 3-4 inches with the exception of a few that are relatively the dominant fish's size. I am coming to the conclusion that its his size over most of my fishes that gives him that extra aggression towards them. I still have hime isolated to this moment its been about a week. I really don't want his aggression to kill more of my fish. I just wanted to see if anyone has any other ideas of dimming down aggression or any recommendations in regards to this matter that would help me out. Thank you for your time everyone.

Sincerely,
Anthony R.

PS: I am attaching some images of the dominant fish that is now in isolation incase anyone wants to see him.

 

[james41683]

Removing fish and putting back after a time out has never worked for me. I had a dragonblood peacock that spent over a month out, once he was put back in the main tank he went back to his old self. He got taken back to the petstore last week.

 

[Boston-Celtic]

Oh man, ok. Thank you for your reply

 

[Demeter32]

It's bound to happen when keeping Africans. I ended up trading in my dominant male yellow lab because he was harassing EVERYONE, even the larger female livingstonii and blue zebra. In his early days he actually killed a female peacock when he wanted to spawn with her. The tank is much calmer after his removal and now his half peacock son (my profile pic) is more or less the dominant male, and he's nice about it too.

I say you should either rehome your dominant male or upgrade and add several more fish to the mix.

As a side note, most haps get too large for a 55. But hey, I kinda ignored that rule too. I have an EB ahli in my 55, but he's still young and growing.

 

[Boston-Celtic]

Thanks man. I will see what happens when I reintroduce him back into the tank. If he's still the same in regards to aggression I think I will rehome him. A friend of mines has larger cichlids but his are Mbunas I don't know if my fish would fit in with his.