[CharlieTuna]

ok. i know we all see newbie's posting atleast once a week various questions revolving around addition of fish for what ever reason and basically there are a few rules of thumb but it's basically trial and error...mostly error .

so for the seasoned malawi people here.

looking at my stock list below and keeping in mind i have an eggcrate diy divider sectioning off about the right 20% of my tank for the eureka jake. the rest of my peacocks are getting rather pissy in the past few weeks i'm assuming because they have grown to 4" or better.

So i was thinking of subtracting the yellow yabs (~6 i belive) and this might create more "teritory" for the individual peacocks thus "less" aggression twords each other.

sound good?

and if all else fails setting up 3 more eggcrate dividers to total 4 quadrents and seperate the combatants and maybe trial and error 2 in a section and leave the nastiest (thinking the O.B.) by himself...........this is all after subtracting the labs.

what are some of your opinions? experiences? knowledge?..... of subtraction.

 

[cichlidaholic]

I've caused just as many disasters by removing fish as I have by adding them... :lol:

I think your main problem here is that you're already dividing a tank that is borderline "small" for the fish you are keeping in the first place.

I have a jake in with some mean mbuna right now, that's where he belongs. He still tries to rule the tank at half the size of the adult mbuna, but he gets put in his place on a daily basis.

I would try removing the Yellow labs except for your nicest male. I tend to believe that a female of any mouthbrooding species is going to cause chaos in an otherwise all male tank.

Then, I would try to pick up 3-4 more males (if you get more peacocks, make sure they look nothing like the ones you have) and then I would take the divider out. If the jake still can't play nice, I would remove him from the tank completely rather than take tank space away from the other fish.

No need for all the dividers...

Kim

 

[Dewdrop]

Kim knows what she's talking about for sure and has lots of experience so I'd try her suggestions. I wouldn't like the dividers in the tank either. If the jake still don't behave after the change maybe switch places with him and the ruby red.

 

[CharlieTuna]

initially i seperated the jake because he was a monster but that was over a year ago and recently i swapped out one of those flimsy petsmart dividers for the stronger eggcrate and the jake got into general population and was almost destroyed within 5 min's and i mean like fis ripped and missing so i melafixed him in seperation and he's now back to 100%.

my senior male yellow has taken control of the rock caves so none of the Aul. has a place to call their own.

I forgot about removing the female yellow, good idea. 4 of the six are juvies and i'm not sure what the sex's are soooo....

oh. and my ruby red was taken out about a month ago cuz he was getting beat up and i put him in my son's 10 gal by himself. needless to say the mollies and platties didnt last more then 4 days. but i love my ruby and anticipate him showing off as he matures

 

[CharlieTuna]

by adding more males do you mean more Aul. or yellow labs? OR maybe some Acei.

 

[cichlidaholic]

More peacocks...You don't want two males that look alike, so this will limit you somewhat...

An acei male and a Rusty male would both make good additions, as well. They (along with the Yellow labs) are some of the more passive mbuna and they don't usually stress peacocks out too much.

Kim