Quote:
|
I am hearing that Cichlids get aggressive when full grown and that it is likely for one or two of them to become dominant and kill off the rest of the tank. How common is this?
|
This depends on the cichlids. Mouthbrooding Mbuna and some tanginikans like Tropheus are best kept in large groups to spread out aggression. Keep only 4 P. Socolofi or M. Auratus and you will end up with 1 male. Most substrate spawning cichlids (Angels, apistos, Laetacara, Julidochromis, kribs, jewels, convicts) will stake out territory when spawning, the key to success is to have a tank larger than their desired territory. So do your homework on each fish you are considering as the size of desired territory varies. Some South and Central American cichlids (convicts among them) are aggressive when first spawning and simply get bigger and meaner with age. Fish like jack Dempsey and Red Devil earn their names. If you see a picture of two fish separated by an egg-crate divider, that is to let them mate without letting them kill each other. So what you were told is true for some cichlids but by no means all. Its a matter of getting the right combination of fish in the right environment. Mbuna should have a tank full of rocks (go buy river rock from Pike stone center they are going bankrupt because of the drought here), Flat fish like discus or severum should have a tank full of tall plants. And the right size tank is essential. The #1 reason cichlids kill is that the tank is too small for the unwanted fish to get far enough away. So you have a lot more options than most first time cichlid buyers. As to how common it is for cichlids to kill all the tank mates, its too common. Pet shops sell Venustus, a fish that grows to a foot long and builds 3 foot wide spawning nests to people with a 10 gallon tank. So its only to be expected. Some cichlids like laetacara dorsiger are really wimps, but all cichlids defend their offspring and therefore are more aggressive that egg scatterers or livebearers that ignore their fry. The also have some of the most interesting behaviors to watch. Cichlids communicate with each other and their fry by both changing color patterns and fin and body language. When threatened, a mother (or a father in some species) mouthbrooder opens wide and all the fry swim in. S. american substrate spawners call their spawn with a few shakes of the lower front fins (angels have long ones, apisto females have black ones) and the fry swim in formation like a flock of birds. I might hesitate to give a child in the "everybody is friends" stage a cichlid tank, but if I set up a 100 gallon, it would definitely be cichlids, though it would take awhile to choose which ones.
Read the toughest cichlid thread for what to avoid. Also avoid fish that are called "eye-biter", "scale-eater", "fin-nipper", "piscavorous". There are cichlids that make their living in the wild from eating parts of or whole other fish. They seldom make good tankmates for any other fish. Though dwarf-pike cichlids are very neat (fry-eating specialists, good for convict population explosions).