I saw one of his videos where he talked about those concrete things he had made locally for his tanks. They have holes in them that bigger fish can't fit into, so females can escape. I wonder if maybe he has a couple of those in his Umbee tank so the other fish can get away if they have to. But, seems like to me I've seen videos of more than one tank he has with breeding Umbees and tankmates.
And......a while back, I read an article by Jeff Rapps, and I took from it that Umbees may have an undeserved reputation.
"I have read reports of adult umbies as dominating, antagonistic bullies, leaving tankmates scaled and finless, situations that I can understand when an adult pair decides to spawn in the confines of a cichlid community aquarium. My experiences with nonbreeding, single adults suggest that while umbies can cohabitate with similarly large, aggressive Central American cichlids, I have unfortunately on occasion had specimens of C. umbrifera "murdered" by tankmates in mixed company."
http://www.cichlidae.com/article.php?id=138
Rapps made it sound like most Umbee aggression is conspecific.
I am very taken with the idea of an Umbee in a big tank, with maybe 2 or 3 other large tankmates--like Mel's videos. If only I could find somebody who knows something about keeping fish to try it out first, see if it'll work before I try it.......
