[cichlidgirl1]

Hi i have six burundi fronts that are growing out nicely (they are 3-5 inches). I had been having aggression and stress issues with them recently as the alpha has gotten much more aggressive to his tankmates and **** seems to roll down hill, effecting the other fronts as well, making them more testy etc..

I went out and collected some new rocks the other day and added them in there. The way the tank had been set up recently was 3 distinct rock piles with wide sand areas inbetween. I noticed after i made one continues rock pile going down the center of the tank that aggression stopped. I set the rocks with swim through gaps between the rocks and free swimming open areas along both the front and back of the tank . The aggression and stress has all but stopped now. everyone has selected an area as their own and many are able to be out of site of the alpha (but not me LOL). I really like the how the rockwork has made my tank a peaceful place. I wanted to mention what i found so if anyone was having similar problems and had a similar placement of rocks and caves they could try this out instead to see if it would help.

 

[GJx]

Sounds like a classic, almost textbook case of emerging dominance issues that you responded to in the way I always read it & it seems to actaully work.

It's always GOOD when stuff actually works.
:dancing:

:thumb:

 

[cichlidgirl1]

yeah, never thought of it that way lol. It was amazing how well it worked . I had been having so much trouble i had removed the smallest and was considering breaking the group down to two groups. I had split tails, shredded fins, nipped off trailers (and they were just starting to grow darn it lol)

 

[Zypherius]

Can you post before and after pics of the rock work?

 

[cichlidgirl1]

Sure, here you go:

Before : Notice the three distinct rock piles. I have six fronts , i figure that also meant 3 did not have rockpiles/caves to call their own.

New rockwork: one long unbroken row of rocks with multiple free standing stones in the center and one rockpile wiith small cave on each end. Open swimming area infront of rockwork , above rockwork (no plants or driftwood) and one sm to med. size sand pit.

Here is a video i took of it last night. Please ignore the disgusting water drip marks LOL, i would not have normally posted this but it was the only one with the new setup and my batteries are dead for the camera. (Its embarrassing but i like how it shows the fish are not stressed or fighting etc..)

http://s238.photobucket.com/albums/.../?action=view&current=burunditanksetup245.flv

Even with a ton of haps and peacocks spawning and making an ass of themselves. Before i changed to this setup every singele front except the alpha was blanched out, stressed (like the one fish acts when near the alpha in the video) every minute of everyday. It got so bad at one point couple weeks ago i started removing fish from the tank ! Thought i would have to sell off the alpha. Now its GREAT.