[tharsis]

I was just messing around with my camera, snapping some pics of my mixed african cichlids in their new home. Here are a bunch of my favorites!

 

[Acro]

So beautiful!

No plants?

I hope to have some eventually.

 

[tharsis]

hehe, yeah I will put some anubias in there eventually. That will blend the rock work a bit more so it looks more like a wall than a jumbled pile.

 

[Acro]

What type of anubias do you think you'll use?
It already looks like a wall!

 

[tharsis]

Just regular ol' anubias barteri nana. I have a ton of them from the 75 gallon tank that I just tore down. They have a lot of dust algae right now so I am quarantining them in a 20 gallon to get them back on track before reintroducing them.

I am probably going to use most of them in my new build though and just use the trimmings to reseed this tank.

These anubias are going to be my retirement fund.

 

[MWebee]

Nice pics. That'll look good..

 

[oliver77]

I wonder how do you able to keep multiple cichlids in one tank?
how big is your tank?

i tried with a 2ft long tank with just 2 cichlids in there and they just fight each other.
i have rocks everywhere too but that doesnt stop them fighting and the one bullied just float at the top corner of the tank. it sucks.

 

[tharsis]

The aggression between african cichlids changes when you have a larger population. If you only have a few cichlids, the aggression is only focused on one or two fish resulting in a bully and a victim; as was the case in your experience. When you introduce more fish, the aggression gets spread out more evenly which basically means that there are no victimized fish.

In my tank, there is one big bully, you can see him in the 2nd to last picture, he is on the far left with the orange top fin, and you can see him in the last picture looking really grumpy with just his head poking out of a cave (beneath the yellow fish). He has always been a jerk and he will chase fish around, but because he hates everyone equally, there are no targets.

This is atleast how I have always understood it.

 

[oliver77]

The aggression between african cichlids changes when you have a larger population. If you only have a few cichlids, the aggression is only focused on one or two fish resulting in a bully and a victim; as was the case in your experience. When you introduce more fish, the aggression gets spread out more evenly which basically means that there are no victimized fish.

In my tank, there is one big bully, you can see him in the 2nd to last picture, he is on the far left with the orange top fin, and you can see him in the last picture looking really grumpy with just his head poking out of a cave (beneath the yellow fish). He has always been a jerk and he will chase fish around, but because he hates everyone equally, there are no targets.

This is atleast how I have always understood it.

Thank you for sharing your experience. I might have another go at cichlids cause i just love them. Cheers mate.

 

[PlantedRich]

For those who would like to give African cichlids a try, there is a scale showing the expected aggression levels for the various types. Check the articles in the cichlid forum. They seem to be spot on in my experience. Once you see who can be expected to be the real trouble makers, it makes it much easier to stay with those who tend to be less trouble. There is no way to say exactly what to expect but it does makes your odds much better. Long term, mixing the fish of the most aggressive with those like Labs in the mild group often gives more trouble. Many people do tend to look at African cichlids as all the same group and it does create problems they could avoid.