Tankmate For Fully Grown Cichlid

[Galanta]

I apologize if I will horrify anybody with my tale. All I can say to my defense is - it is/was my very first fish tank ever... Anyways, 2 years ago I put together a tank of African Cichlids as a gift to my husband. I got an Eclipse 12 and read up on a bunch of stuff on the internet and then picked 3 different Cichlids to go into the tank. One was an Electric Yellow, one was a Demasoni and I don't remember the name of the last one. I got them all young and tried to get them all the same size. I picked up the Electric Yellow in my LFS and ordered in the other two from within CA. The 3rd one came in a lot smaller than described and had a very rough time time from the beginning. The Demasoni was larger than the Electric Yellow, but was attacking him so aggressively that the Yellow's tail fin got all ragged. I ended up isolating the Demasoni in a smaller tank. Once the Electric Yellow had grown to well beyond the Demasoni's size I tried reintroducing the Demasoni into the 12g, but same result - Electric Yellow completely harassed/frayed and constantly hiding. The Demasoni ended up staying in his own tank and we unfortunately lost him in a later tank disaster.

Once the Demasoni was out of the picture however, the Electric Yellow started harrassing the heck out of the other poor little cichlid and he actually died within 2 months. Since the Demasoni had been taken out of the tank, I thought I could add another fish and added a Pleco in for tank clean-up. I got one that was much larger than the Yellow Lab at that time, hoping that the Cichlid would leave him alone, but once he had made mince meat out of the other Cichlid, he started harassing and chewing up the Pleco and we lost him too.

So our Sammy has been "King of the Castle" for a year now. He is fully grown (at least 4 inches) and beautiful. His fins have regrown and he has not had any kind of ills in the 2 years we have had him. He has had a 12gal tank all to himself now for at least a year. He seems very shy in that he stays nearly all the time in his cave and only comes out when it is feeding time (or maybe when we are not at home). I would like to add some fish - or anything - to the tank, but don't want any more fish to loose their lives to Sammy.

So my questions are:

a) Is there any hope of introducing more tankmates to our tank this late in the game - or should I better not even try?

b) If yes, what kind of fish (or other) would you recommend?

 

[Galanta]

Thank you. Will need to talk to hubby again. A bigger tank is out of the question. I originally suggested to him to get somebody to adopt Sammy, but the man has grown attached to the fish. Will need to discuss with him newly....

Is there anybody in the Los Angeles area on this forum, who would be interested in a yellow lab addition for their large tank?

 

[dthoffsett]

While this isn't something I would normally recommend, I'd say keep him by himself in the 12gal.

L.caeruleus really prefer to be in groups, however, introducing mbuna who has reach sexual maturity in a tank by himself is really inviting disaster. As long as you keep up on water changes and don't try to add anymore fish he'll be just fine. The tank is large enough for him to easily move around so I wouldn't worry that he doesn't have enough room.

However, if you really want to keep more than one fish you will need to rehome him.

 

[Galanta]

Dear dthoffsett, Thanks. What you say makes sense. He definitely has space to move around, though I see that at the speeds he can get up to, he could easily use up an aquarium 5x the length. Knowing what I know now, I definitely will go with a bigger tank or different fish next time. Do you think, if I were to find somebody, who already has a large African Cichlid tank, that Sammy might be able to integrate into the existing set up or is this also not likely to succeed? I know that he is very aggressive, but it if he is in an all new territory he might be subdued enough to accept existing "hierachy" and fit in. He is only 2 years old, so it seems sad for him to live out so many more years all on his own.

 

[dthoffsett]

Do you think, if I were to find somebody, who already has a large African Cichlid tank, that Sammy might be able to integrate into the existing set up or is this also not likely to succeed? I know that he is very aggressive, but it if he is in an all new territory he might be subdued enough to accept existing "hierachy" and fit in. He is only 2 years old, so it seems sad for him to live out so many more years all on his own.

With mbuna it can really be hit or miss, there's a chance that once he's put in a larger tank he may fall to the middle or bottom of the hierarchy, or he may go rogue and kill anything he can.
The only thing you could do is find someone you trust to watch very closely and remove him if problems arise.

Based off of accounts I have read in the past, adult mbuna that have lived on their own just don't integrate well with other fish (even in a suitable tank), typically either the lone fish will be picked on by the new tankmates or the lone fish will attack all the others, like I said its really up to individual temperments.

I realize all you've seen is aggression from him so far, however, any mbuna will fight when kept in too small of a tank as you unknowingly did, so it's not definite that he will be a fighter, but I suspect he probably would.

 

[Galanta]

Thanks. I will check with some of the employees of local LFS. Many of them have large tanks at home and will see if anyone wants to give it a try. Otherwise we'll leave things as they arem thanks again.