Hello all

Chris182

Gambusia
MFK Member
Oct 30, 2014
8
1
18
Bristol, England
First and foremost I will introduce myself!

My name is Chris and I am an avid fish keeper. Have kept a variety of fish over the years, mostly cichlids. Have been in the hobby for about 10 years, give or take! I have a 125 gallon Malawi aquarium containing mostly haps and peacocks. I also have a 2x2x2 cube with a sump containing 6x firemouths (hoping to get a breeding pait) couple of swordtails, a tiger pleco, a bristle nose pleco and 4 danios. Finally I have a 70 gallon 4 foot long tank which currently contains 1 single jaguar cichlid. This is a temporary home until I can get a new one hopefully after Xmas! I "rescued" this bad boy as I wanted an aggressive fish, and boy did I get one! He/she is about 8 inches at the moment and is very bad tempered. This is where I need your help please :). Currently I am afraid to do water changes lol every time I put my hand in the tank, it immediately goes to attack me. It attacks my gravel vac and is currently throwing around fairly heavy rocks in my tank. I need to move these rocks but am unable to get near them! My question is, would it really hurt if this jag gets hold of me??? Should I allow it to bite me, and if I do, will it satisfy its anger and stop it from doing it again? Lol sounds mad I know but if I can't control its aggression I am afraid I will always have a problem doing routine maintenance etc. how do you large cichlid owners get around this?? I have never owned a fish that I am literally afraid of! Thanks for your help guys!

Chris
 

fwprawn

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Jul 29, 2011
3,441
7
38
New England
Welcome!
Sounds like you have some nice taste in fish.

The Jag bite will scratch your skin, but that's about it. If you have accidentally scraped your hand against a rock or something, and scratched your skin - that's what it feels like - It's really not that bad - but I don't enjoy allowing myself to get hurt knowingly.
Use rubber gloves (untreated) or just keep him at bay with the vac, or a stick or something.
 

ragin_cajun

Silver Tier VIP
MFK Member
Sep 8, 2013
2,757
996
1,600
53
South Louisiana
It doesn't hurt, but it does startle you when you're not expecting it, then you jump, bump tbe heater, then all tbe other fish get startled, THEY all jump, one of em hits their head on tbe lid.... I've been looking for a long enough gravel vac to stick out of tbe top of a tank to alleviate this. Maybe I could build my own...


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Chris182

Gambusia
MFK Member
Oct 30, 2014
8
1
18
Bristol, England
Thanks for the responses guys. I try to keep it at bay with the vac but he goes for it so hard that he scuffs his mouth up. He will get me one day as he is super fast and agile so I won't be able to dodge him forever :(

Lol yeah I have had the startle problem before. Once I was bitten by my venustus and man did I jump! I hurt my elbow funny bone in the process from jumping so much I hit the edge of the tank right on the corner too!
 

Evz jardini

Jardini
MFK Member
May 19, 2010
4,761
591
120
42
manchester /uk
Nice male jag :)

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