Aggression Problem

[denis coghlan]

As most people who keep African cichlids are aware, that trying to sex young juvenile fish is some what guess work and somewhat impossible! During the last two days this problem has risen its ugly head in my mbuna setup. The problem is with the ps. mpanga. Originally I bought four fish which the LFS guy told me where "at his best guess" three female and one male". I am not pointing the fingers at the LFS staff as their guesses are just as good as everybody else's. The male was a definite as it was already beginning to show its dominant colours, but the three "females" showed just a drab blueish colour.

Since then the 1 male and three females have turned into. 1 hybrid female, 1 hybrid male and two normal male mpanga. This is where the trouble starts! The three males are aggressive and territorial, between them they have each taken one quarter of the tank. Leaving the other fish "all ten of them" in the remain quarter! (see pics)

At present there is only one mpanga female (complete hybrid) in the tank. So all the males attention is on the other males and the other fish in the tank. Plus, its all the bad attention not the good attention, if you know what I mean!! This then results in all the other fish in the tank being cramped up in the one corner!

So what can I do?

These are my thought so far!!

* I know that my LFS is getting in mpanga in under a weeks time, should I buy four females and leave the males in the tank and hope that this reduces the aggression! If I do this, then the tank will be over stocked and I will not be certain the fish I will be buying are all female and could just cause more problems.

*Should I return two of the males and replace them with females from the LFS's new batch. I can see this as a good solution for the one ok male mpanga, but I cant imagine that the LFS will take back a hybrid male fish. Then what do I do with this fish, do people recommend that I destroy it?

*Buying another tank is not an option as I neither have the space nor the funds!

*Moving the rock work. I really dont want to have to move the rock work in the tank, but I have read that this may help reduce aggression, but I can only imagine that this works for a short period before territories are reestablished!

Any ideas are welcome

tanks.


You can see that the three male mpanga are dominating nearly the entire tank!

The rest of the fish wedged in the corner

Culprit 1

Culprit 2

Culprit 3 (hybrid mpanga male, by far the most aggressive fish in the tank)
<img src="http/i67.photobucket.com/albums/h283/tanks_alot/DSCF2819.jpg" width="400" height="275" />

 

[Mr. Convict]

What i would do, is carry back which of the fish you can, then rearrange the rocks, and hope that lowers agression, i really can't see any sure solution, or maybe, if you can get one or two SURE females, so that the mpangas attention would be more towards them... maybe someone else has a solution?

I hate to see those fish cramped up there, and i could only imagine how you must feel..

Great tank and fish though,

Good luck trying to fix this, keep me posted on what you do

 

[Ferris]

To be honest tanks I'd return all the males bar 1, things will most likely get worse as they grow towards adulthood. Not an easy decision to make but the blow could be softened by getting a group of females or another species altogether.

 

[Nick Sw]

I`d keep culprit 1 he`s a beauty and swop the other male and hybrid for quality females, I suppose it depends on how confident you are with your LFS, the thing I find strange is all three males seem to be showing thier dominant colours, I`ve just found one of my Afra Cobue is a male but you can hardly tell beacuse he`s the sub dominant one (he almost looks like a female, on occassions I`ve seen him flare up at a glance and thought What ! which fish is that ? really strange to see but I`ve had no aggression problems so far)

Also theres the line of sight thing/theory although you`ve got lots of rocks are they actually breaking the line of sight in between fish ? If they can see each other all the time then they are going to kick off maybe re-arrange the rocks a bit to form a sort of "S" shaoe from above?

You know more than me anyway Tanks but I`d like to help, but from the pic it looks hard to believe from how my tank is aggression wise , maybe I`ve got this to come.

 

[brewyn]

I dont believe that rearanging your rockwork will help tanks, infact I think it will fire up the aggression even more as the fish regain there territories. I would take your hybrid fish back, stand your ground, mention this site, and ask to exchange for 3 females, he will clearly see he has palmed you off with dodgy fish. be carefull that they are not replaced with even more hybrids as these LFS tend to buy there stock from the same suppliers. (I tend to buy from different outlets to reduce inbreeding).

It may not be a bad thing your fish hanging out in 1 corner, mine do the same in all my tanks, and its usualy the corner I feed them from. the slightest movement and there there LOL. even my archer fish stay in a corner while spitting water at me through the gaps in the glass sides.