[amusrobs]

Hello,

I have a Colbalt blue Zebra that I bought to help dethrone or challange my electric blue male that was the boss of the tank. The colbalt was showing his aggression colors with a dark black strip on all his fins. At first he was up at the powerheads being bullied, for about two weeks like this. Then overnight a shift came, and he starting running the show. So bad that he had 4 of my 11 chiclids mostly dead. We moved him out to another tank with just silver dollars. He killed all of them. Just recently we added a 3 blue acara (pet store told us they were aggressive). Within 2 hours he had most of thier fins removed, so we pulled him out. What are we to do with this angry fish. He is huge and beautiful, and we don't want to get rid of him. Any suggestions?

Tank 1-55 gal tank with normal and healthy water levels.
1 White scoffi
1 acei
2 electric blue johani
1 bumblebee
2 peacock
1 rusty
1 blue dolphin
1 orange "jewel" chiclid
1 pleco

Tank 2-30 gal
3 blue acara
1 pleco
1 yoyo loach

Tank 3-5 gal
17 fry of our yellow tip acai (bought her while holding to our surprize)

Thanks for your time.

 

[GoofBoy]

Hello,

I have a Colbalt blue Zebra that I bought to help dethrone or challange my electric blue male that was the boss of the tank. The colbalt was showing his aggression colors with a dark black strip on all his fins. At first he was up at the powerheads being bullied, for about two weeks like this. Then overnight a shift came, and he starting running the show. So bad that he had 4 of my 11 chiclids mostly dead. We moved him out to another tank with just silver dollars. He killed all of them. Just recently we added a 3 blue acara (pet store told us they were aggressive). Within 2 hours he had most of thier fins removed, so we pulled him out. What are we to do with this angry fish. He is huge and beautiful, and we don't want to get rid of him. Any suggestions?

Tank 1-55 gal tank with normal and healthy water levels.
1 White scoffi
1 acei
2 electric blue johani
1 bumblebee
2 peacock
1 rusty
1 blue dolphin
1 orange "jewel" chiclid
1 pleco

Tank 2-30 gal
3 blue acara
1 pleco
1 yoyo loach

Tank 3-5 gal
17 fry of our yellow tip acai (bought her while holding to our surprize)

Thanks for your time.

He needs a bunch of girls to occupy him.

One of this and one of that is very hard way to keep africans. Very low odds of success. Please look at the cookie cutters here.

Also, please be aware, some males are simply too aggressive to keep in a 4ft tank no matter what you try.

Good Luck.

 

[DJRansome]

Your cobalt sounds more like a socolofi when you mention the black fins.

Another option would be to remove all females and duplicates (two fish of same species) from your tank and shoot for all-male.

The bumblebee is likely to be too large for a 55G regardless of aggression.

 

[amusrobs]

wow your amazing DJRansome. Our aggresive beast is a powder blu socolofi. Wow the pet stores sure don't know anything about cichlids do they.

So will my albino socolofi and and my powder blue mate? They showed a lot of aggresion to each other, and this makes sence now.

I guess I need to have a cichlid garage sale, and start again.

thanks

 

[dotbomb]

I guess I need to have a cichlid garage sale, and start again.

I did this recently. I had a one of this and one of that. Removed them all to another tank, took a quick video, and posted on craigslist. I sold 10 fish in an hour (got lucky but video helps for sure).

 

[Kanorin]

You have quite a few aggressive species. It's likely that if you were to remove the dominant terror, another fish would quickly take his place as the new dominant terror. And by the end of it, you'd have made 12 trips to the fish store and become fed up with the hobby.

I guess I need to have a cichlid garage sale, and start again.

I think this is a good idea. It's always easiest to start from a clean slate. :thumb:

Definitely take a look at those cookie cutter setups and we can help you plan out the new stocklist.

 

[dielikemoviestars]

I agree with what's being said. You've mixed some really tame haps/peacocks with some really aggressive mbuna. Unfortunately, most everyone does this in the beginning and, unfortunately, it rarely (never) works. +1 for starting fresh again.

 

[amusrobs]

Thanks for all your help guys. Can I keep any of my fish? Like the electric blues, bumblebee and socolofi and add more of those species? I would make sure to have 1 male to 3 females of each.(maybe only male1-2females for the bumblebees)

We plan to upgrade to 75 gallons in the next year.

 

[dielikemoviestars]

You can keep the johanni and socolofi, but johanny can be vicious. You want 1m:5+f for johanni. The bumblebee you'll want 1m:5+f as well, but they get too large and aggressive, so even a 75 won't work with any other fish. Socolofi with 3-4f will be fine.

 

[jetnet22]

Thanks for all your help guys. lace wigs

 

[dielikemoviestars]

Did I really type johanny? HA!