remembering again, why I gave up ( for the most part ) on South American cichlids...

[GaryE]

When I bred angels, I once had a big bag of young ready to go to the club.
I walked out with the bag and discovered my car had been stolen. That's a fish that will go to great lengths to stay in your tanks.

 

[Magnum Man]

not done obviously, but a start... big momma on the left end, the most likely male ( if any ) of the 2 new fish in the center, and the 3rd fish on the right side... curious if the center fish ends up male, and the one on the other end female, if I could end up with a breeding trio, with the tank set up like this???

foam on the bottom and top friction fit the dividers in place, and they were not quite tall enough, with so little substrate

 

[Magnum Man]

I moved the larger worm line pleco to the tetra tank... and it seems to be leaving the couple cory's alone in that tank... and should do well in there... it's an aggressive eater of algae cookies, so I'll need to double the cookies I'm feeding in that tank now...

big momma has been moving even the bigger rocks out of the way, and swimming under the dividers, so all 3 fish are swimming under them right now, and she seems to want to be in the section the other 2 are in, so she can chase them around... but at least the other 2 aren't fighting, when they are running away... and so far, it's just been mean mugging, not even a damaged fin on any of the fish...

it's pretty noisy, when big momma is pushing around the 2-3 inch stones...

 

[GaryE]

"Divider breeding" is an old trick with large aggressive Cichlids in small, violence inspiring tanks. It's used for the mass production of fry. Ever wonder why fish like dempsies can be so cheap?

It's a technique I've never used because I've never been into mass production for markets. As a hobbyist, I find those tanks uninteresting to look at. And the kinds of fish it works with can be very hard to sell. It's depressing to raise beautiful Rubricatochromis or Central American Cichlids and have everyone run away screaming when you try to find them homes.

 

[Magnum Man]

in the state it's in ( the tank), it's too "commercial" looking for me... so the 1st task, is to get the tank so they can't just go anywhere they want, then to do what I can to make it look more like an aquarium, than a zoo cage...

but then any of the larger cichlids can be challenging to keep the tank how you want it to look... big momma being a mid size cichlid, is moving 3 inch rocks, back when I had oscar's ( in the dark ages ) they always rearranged the tank, how they wanted the tank to look, even moving 5-6 inch rocks, no live plants, only heavily weighted plastic plants, and more often than not, those were laying on their sides, or buried under substrate...

 

[Magnum Man]

looks like the moved worm line pleco, has taken over one of the 4 caves in this tank... which was former occupied by the male sail fin tetra... I assume he moved out, rather than share it with this guy...

 

[Magnum Man]

slowly coming, as I get a little time

 

[Magnum Man]

baffling... I need more substrate, and they are finding a way around, under, or over the dividers... I came home today, and all 3 are in the same 1/3 of the tank, and not fighting

not sure what I'm missing here???

 

[GaryE]

I ended up having to silicone the glass to create slots with plastic, to hold the dividers. They are very resourceful when they want to break through, especially given that they have very little room to move in divided tanks. They get bored, and jailbreaks result.

Back to the title of the thread, eh? I love my dwarf Cichlids and find them endlessly interesting, but these mid sized, over 12 cm ones? If I didn't have my Central African Chromidotilapia kingsleyae growing out, I'd say never again. But if you like Cichlids, you do get tempted sometimes.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I have been a fairly constant user pf divided tanks. for a long time. This become a necessity when I began selling at weekend events and used tanks for this. Also, as I began breeding more plecos, I needed to divide more tanks. O also discovered when the time came to breaj down a pleco breeding tank in order to catch and remove offspring there was a way to make this a lot easier. Thatt was to start by dividing the tank in half.

I used a lot of 33 long tanks which are 3 feet long. Chasing fish around that to nab them was a real challenge. Then it dawned on me that if I divided the tank in half for that process the catching got a lot easier. It also meant I could work on half the tank at a time and take a break between.

Most of the dividers on the market are junk, IMO. I needed something less flimsey and more reliable and which would also permit the water between the halves to move back and forth. The solution was to use a sheet of Poret foam which I was already using for Matten filters and also I was replacing ATI sponges with Poret cubefilters.

I could divide a tank in half easily with a 2 inch thick sheet of 10 or 20 ppi foam. Swiss Tropicals sells a sheet that fits perfectly in 20L and 33L tanks. But I took things a step further. I actually have a Poret sheet I use to divide a 125 or a 150 gal tank. it is in two pieces because the 150 is taller than the 125.

Yes, a sheet of Poret is more costly than the cheap dividers, but it is also fail-safe.It creates a porous wall in a tank that there is no was over, under or around. When I more permanently divide a tank this way the sheet also becomes a form of filter as well. Here is a poc I am borrowing from Swiss Tropicals:

 

[GaryE]

Poret would be a solution, although SA Cichlids are more likely to crash the divider than a lt of catfish are. It is expensive, but it isn't going to work if your goal is to breed the Cichlids with a divider. I don't think you're aiming for that.

These are extremely strong fish, and they can be smart and resourceful when they want to change a tank's decor. I still think they are extremely expensive fish. You can get them in a club auctions for a few dollars, but they force you to buy multiple fully equipped aquariums as they grow...

 

[TNG]

I use polycarbonate roofing sheet, cut to size, as dividers, and 4 suction cups used to hold the each divider in place.

 

[Magnum Man]

last night the 2 smaller ones snuck out to other sections, but as the lights came on this morning , the smaller ones are back in with big momma again... maybe a little "moving them around" but no real fighting...

I guess if the space is too small for anyone to set up turf, there could be less fighting , but most of the time there are 2 empty sections with roughly equal structure, and yet the 2 smaller ones keep coming back to the section big momma can't get out of... not sure why they keep coming back to get bossed around???

if they were babies, they might have a parental draw, though this is not their momma, but these are both 1/2 the size of big momma, so they are well on their way???

 

[Magnum Man]

maybe I need a college class "cichlid psychology 101" , as they used to frustrate me so much, when I had multiple species before...

 

[Magnum Man]

ok, I took the baffles out, since the smaller fish kept getting by them, and going in with big momma, anyway... there is no fin damage, just the 3rd in. command, fins down, showing submission, will keep an eye on them, I did not put the cave back in, since it reduces swimming space, and only the pleco who used to be in here used it... will look for another plastic plant, or real plant, that can take the mid sized cichlid abuse... this tank had a flowering anubias nana in it previously, I don't think big momma destroyed it, I think the silver dollar, that was moved out ate that I'm thinking more terrestrial plant roots might be good???