ADVICE NEEDED, PLEASE

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Big Dempsey

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 27, 2009
221
1
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North Dakota , USA
my attempt at a ca/sa community is starting to suck ,i cant get my fish to get along . i moved my black shark which was bullying the smaller fish into a 30 Long ,
then my JD started in , took him out put him in w ith the shark , he beat the hell out of the shark,
which was the other way around in the 90 .
Now my salvini has tore up my GT and is also after my texas . my two little jags abot 3.5 inches are at it w my botia's and they all hide now .
what should i do , start over ? im so frustrated i don't even want fish anymore,
they are in a 90 plenty of space and places to hide ,
the biggest fish is the salvini & jags at 3.5 inches
 
I'm no expert but I think you need a bigger tank or alot of dividers and eventually a bigger tank... Also fish have different personalities, never know what your going to get sometimes.
 
Big Dempsey;3996813; said:
what im wondering is how do other people get sa /ca communities w little or no probs and get it to work, i tink its time to quit !!!!
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Easyest way to get rid of aggression is to remove all decorations and potential terretorial possesions, and add more fish and dithers.

People still don't belive me when i post some of my setups, and how they are completely aggression free.

It's a matter of personal taste i reckon. A bare tank with a large amount of fish in it can look boring and crowded to some, and awesome to another.
 
No matter what you do,somebody has to be the dominant male and the dominant female.With that being said,adding more fish as MrHagel said, does actually help to avoid aggression towards just that 1-2-3-fish.But over stocking could also become an issue if you do not have the right filtration etc.One thing I will disagree on though is I would add even more stuff for them to hide or have to swim around etc. 2 fish in open water with nowhere to hide when 1 is losing the fight leads to 1 less fish.Dont give up.If anything,trade a fish to a friend or get less aggressive sa/ca cichlids.One sure way that has worked for me is get all the fish you want at all the same size and let them all grow up together.If you have 2 in a tank for a year then add 1 more,then add another in another year etc is probably when you will experience problems. Even 1 every 3 weeks,months etc. I have a personal tank with about 10 fish in it that all have been together for a long time.Now if I add anything else to that tank,even twice the size of the fish in there-it will be dead in a few days.But that's how cichlids are...if you want schooling playful fish maybe you should try rainbows,discus,angels etc. Hope that helps.
John
 
TheFishJunky;3996919; said:
No matter what you do,somebody has to be the dominant male and the dominant female.With that being said,adding more fish as MrHagel said, does actually help to avoid aggression towards just that 1-2-3-fish.But over stocking could also become an issue if you do not have the right filtration etc.One thing I will disagree on though is I would add even more stuff for them to hide or have to swim around etc. 2 fish in open water with nowhere to hide when 1 is losing the fight leads to 1 less fish.Dont give up.If anything,trade a fish to a friend or get less aggressive sa/ca cichlids.One sure way that has worked for me is get all the fish you want at all the same size and let them all grow up together.If you have 2 in a tank for a year then add 1 more,then add another in another year etc is probably when you will experience problems. Even 1 every 3 weeks,months etc. I have a personal tank with about 10 fish in it that all have been together for a long time.Now if I add anything else to that tank,even twice the size of the fish in there-it will be dead in a few days.But that's how cichlids are...if you want schooling playful fish maybe you should try rainbows,discus,angels etc. Hope that helps.
John
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Completely agree, and get a longer and wider tank when you shop for tanks. CA and SA like their swimming room.
 
IM looking at a 180,i really like cichlids and do want a community so i guess i like the option of getting what i want and letting them grow together ,
but even the one's i did buy at the same time fight and ive done no deco and rearrange etc and have given a month in between doing that and they still fight no matter how i've had the tank set up,
i guess i should have not added the others because what i had at fisrt got along very well,
which was my two O's my black shark and salvini but they did not grow together
 
none of us keeping tanks with little to no aggression issues do it (or have managed it) easily.

I think patience, experience and research are the 3 biggest factors to success.

In a 90, I would personally go with 1 large CA (or possible pair), several smaller growing cichlids and some dithers/target fish.

example:

Hericthys carpintis single or pair (escondido, lahillas, vontehillo, chairiel etc)
2 female 1 male Honduran red point
3-6 clown loaches
1 small growing pleco or pictus cat

you have 5 or so that are all aggressive trying to take over the tank and thats a recipe for death or at least complete stress on smaller fish, which isnt good.

Id try that or,if its your cup of tea, you can over crowd them and have, for the most part, a tacky looking tank with miserable but maybe healthy fish that just sit there, dont carry out any of their natural habits and stare out of the tank blankly. Youll also have to WAY over filter or do water changes every other day if not daily...depends on your method I guess.

Good Luck either way.
 
Here's another thing I noticed,but for the record,it could be meaningless and all in my head-however, I did notice that I have a lot less aggression issues when the tank temperature is up around 78-82 degrees. Not to derail but anyone agree or disagree? It is after all trying to help the OP anyway.
 
i have 3 clown loaches & 3 redfin botia and a bushy nose pleco and the texas so i will trade the others in and look for the red points , what dithers would go good with those VRWC ?
 
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