Oh No. Bad Jewel Cichlid!

[humpy_the_humphead_wrasse]

well. think its time to move my breeding large pair of jewels to their own tank LOL.

i decided to chuck 3 blue rams into a tank of hemichromi's, yellow labs and peacocks yesterday morning to see how itd go.

no probs till tonight lol. turned around from playing f.c.p.r.e.m.i.x on GH3 to see him with a ram hanging out of his mouth the damn fish. hes dug a pit inside my ornamental bell which may be the cause for the dead ram, may have gotten to close. for the short term ive moved the bell to somewhere else and leveled all the gravel.

is pit digging a behaviour of jewel cichlids befor breeding? were the rams a bad choice lol? just worried cause their only small and i have a few yellow labs who rnt much bigger. ill put a tank in my 1 1/2 ft tank tommorrow. theyll live happily in there!

so wierd. he's been in there nearly since day one and never shown any aggression. only time he shows anything is when the femal is getting in the mood to lay!. wierd

 

[fish are friends....]

Jewels are extremely aggresive fish and will have a good go at even fish bigger then them. Considering Rams are one of the most peaceful fish in the cichlidae family, the answer is; Yes, it was a very very bad idea to put them in. Jewels should be in a mbuna species tank really, or just a single species tank, with just one pair of Jewels.

Pit digging in a distictive breeding behavour, so it seems that your pair are going to lay, or may even already have eggs layed somewhere, hence why they have become more aggresive.