Fish thrashing and staying at top of tank?

[Naughts]

And I find it difficult to portion pellet, how much pellet should I be feeding?

Sorry, I'm not sure on that one. My community tanks don't get pellets apart from the cories who have about one each. My betta and apistos get 3 or 4 micropellets per fish. I can't really translate that for bigger cichlid fish.
@Wills or @AquaBarb may be able to answer.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

It sounds like the fish are being underfed. That alone will almost certainly trigger their inner aggressive tendancies. African Cichlids are pretty notorious for being aggressive if not fed enough or often enough to quell or at least lessen that trait.

They are, by virtue of their size, still growing so will need a more balanced and regular diet with daily feeds with as @Naughts has said, using the frozen once a week and a variety of other food types each of the other days.

I stand to be corrected here but the feeding regime might well be a root cause for the aggression or possibly not helping the situation.

 

[AmyKieran]

It sounds like the fish are being underfed. That alone will almost certainly trigger their inner aggressive tendancies. African Cichlids are pretty notorious for being aggressive if not fed enough or often enough to quell or at least lessen that trait.

They are, by virtue of their size, still growing so will need a more balanced and regular diet with daily feeds with as @Naughts has said, using the frozen once a week and a variety of other food types each of the other days.

I stand to be corrected here but the feeding regime might well be a root cause for the aggression or possibly not helping the situation.

Okay I might actually get some flake aswell and alternate between all of these food sources, thanks again for help

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Okay I might actually get some flake aswell and alternate between all of these food sources, thanks again for help

You can only try these ideas out and see if things improve. It doesn't hurt to try and to change things around slightly.

Mix and match the food types and feed on a more regular basis for a week or two and see if the fish calm their behaviour towards each other and especially towards the one that seems to being worst affected by their behaviour.

Alot of fishkeeping can be trial and error and the fish don't always help things by virtue of their behaviour traits.

You'll get there...fish can be ultra frustrating occasionally.

 

[AmyKieran]

You can only try these ideas out and see if things improve. It doesn't hurt to try and to change things around slightly.

Mix and match the food types and feed on a more regular basis for a week or two and see if the fish calm their behaviour towards each other and especially towards the one that seems to being worst affected by their behaviour.

Alot of fishkeeping can be trial and error and the fish don't always help things by virtue of their behaviour traits.

You'll get there...fish can be ultra frustrating occasionally.

Defo lol I’m gunna feed every day between pellet, bug bites and frozen and test nitrates aswell and see how I go

 

[Slaphppy7]

What size tank is this?

 

[AmyKieran]

What size tank is this?

190l

 

[Slaphppy7]

So, about 50 USG...I have no experience with these cichlids, but some sources suggest at least 75 USG

Tank size may be an issue, with aggression, but just a hunch

African Cichlids from lake Malawi: a complete care guide

There is no doubt that Lake Malwai has produced some of the most beautiful fishes in the world, the

www.tankfacts.com

 

[AmyKieran]

So, about 50 USG...I have no experience with these cichlids, but some sources suggest at least 75 USG

Tank size may be an issue, with aggression, but just a hunch

African Cichlids from lake Malawi: a complete care guide

There is no doubt that Lake Malwai has produced some of the most beautiful fishes in the world, the

www.tankfacts.com

I’ve been told by my local aquatics shop to massively overstock (to an extent) to spread out the aggression aslong as I’m overfiltrating. I’m filtering 1800 lph through 2 canister filters so I’m pretty well filtered. I wish I stuck at 40 really but I have 50 now. I’m defo stopping at 50. I test rigorously and if I start seeing water parameters affected by the number of fish, I will be taking some back

 

[Slaphppy7]

I’ve been told by my local aquatics shop to massively overstock (to an extent) to spread out the aggression aslong as I’m overfiltrating. I’m filtering 1800 lph through 2 canister filters so I’m pretty well filtered. I wish I stuck at 40 really but I have 50 now. I’m defo stopping at 50. I test rigorously and if I start seeing water parameters affected by the number of fish, I will be taking some back

Always use extreme caution with advice from the shops...they are there to make $, first and foremost...and many times, their guidance leaves ALOT to be desired

Again, I have no experience with these cichlids, but the above applies to all fishkeeping

I hope you get the issue sorted out, regardless

 

[AmyKieran]

Always use extreme caution with advice from the shops...they are there to make $, first and foremost...and many times, their guidance leaves ALOT to be desired

Again, I have no experience with these cichlids, but the above applies to all fishkeeping

I hope you get the issue sorted out, regardless

Yes I wish I knew this forum sooner as I have now learned that advice. I actually was told I could keep up to 150 in my tank. Some of these fish get 7 inch long! I obviously wouldn’t do that it would be complete cruelty. But yes I’ve definitely seen the money-making over the fish’s health a few times

 

[Slaphppy7]

Yes I wish I knew this forum sooner as I have now learned that advice. I actually was told I could keep up to 150 in my tank. Some of these fish get 7 inch long! I obviously wouldn’t do that it would be complete cruelty. But yes I’ve definitely seen the money-making over the fish’s health a few times

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Yes I wish I knew this forum sooner as I have now learned that advice. I actually was told I could keep up to 150 in my tank. Some of these fish get 7 inch long! I obviously wouldn’t do that it would be complete cruelty. But yes I’ve definitely seen the money-making over the fish’s health a few times

At least you had the presence of mind to quickly realised that the shop advice wasn't good or healthy advice and acted accordingly.

Sadly though many take the advice their supplier gives and stick to it to the letter, then ends up with often catastrophic results.

I wish there were more people who actively asked questions and acted on them like you have done, then forums like this would not see so many disastrous aquarium setups.

 

[AmyKieran]

At least you had the presence of mind to quickly realised that the shop advice wasn't good or healthy advice and acted accordingly.

Sadly though many take the advice their supplier gives and stick to it to the letter, then ends up with often catastrophic results.

I wish there were more people who actively asked questions and acted on them like you have done, then forums like this would not see so many disastrous aquarium setups.

Yes well I’ve gained a bit of knowledge since joining this, enough to actually help other people. I’m taking extreme caution with my tank due to the number of fish. If I start running into issues as the fish get bigger then I’ll have to rehome some. Same with the food advice that was given by the aquatics shop. I went out today and am now feeding a mix of pellet, cichlid sticks, bug bites and frozen food hopefully my cichlids will be much healthier now thanks to the advice from this forum

 

[Colin_T]

If you feed the fish well, they are more likely to be full and less likely to eat each other. However, well fed fish will want to breed and that can cause lots of aggression, especially among cichlids. Less food or feeding less often will reduce their urge to breed, and reduce aggression.

Feed a dry food first and then feed frozen food. If you have live food, put that in the tank after the dry and frozen food. You can feed frozen and live food every day but give them dry food first.

If you feed them well every second day, they will be fed but hopefully won't want to breed as much. However, baby fish and young fish need to be fed well every day so they can grow. If they aren't fed well, they won't grow as fast or at all.

When it comes to adding food to the tank (assuming it is cycled with an established biological filter), feed a small amount of food and let the fish eat it. If they eat it all in a few seconds, offer them a bit more. They should eat everything within a couple of minutes. Uneaten food should be removed after 5-10 minutes unless you have catfish or loaches that should come out when they smell the food.

In this case, I would feed dry food for a couple of minutes, then offer frozen food. They will eat more than 2 cubes of frozen fish food each day. Frozen food can be offered 1 or 2 cubes at a time, one cube at a time is probably safer until you know how much the fish can eat. They should eat all the frozen food within a couple of minutes.