All guts, no Glory.

[FINWIN]

Not so happy news from the 125. The Roman Arena of survival continues. Went downstairs to do a water change on the 125 and found not one but two carcasses floating on opposite ends of the tank. Another jumbo striped male (I suspect Bubba) and a pink male which sadly appears to be Squiggy. These deaths were recent and from violence. Bubba was missing an eye and had a torn fin. What appears to be Squiggy has a dime sized hole in his body which leaked pink fluid and his guts were coming out. Never seen anything like it since keeping fish. Both fish scales were soft and just rolled off when I netted them like mulm. Unbelievable. If they do this to each other no wonder they strip all plants. This must have happened in the last day or so.

So the upshot is that I'm pretty much out of the huge striped males now. I definitely saw Bumper and maybe Shade alive of the striped males (mid sized). I've definitely identified Mongo and Brutus of the big pinks being alive. I suspect this has something to do with the growth spurt of Fric and Frac. They're still small but have doubled in size. It seems as though when I lose fish, others grow suddenly.

I can only say no matter what you think or do, never turn your back on cichlids! And never get comfortable with any setup. And I don't want to read or hear about 'relatively peaceful' hondurans. I swear, Convicts couldn't cause more calamity than this crowd.

 

[jjohnwm]

What appears to be Squiggy has a dime sized hole in his body which leaked pink fluid and his guts were coming out.

Hmmm...have you ever seen the movie "Alien"?

It's bad enough to lose fish to jumping or accidents or equipment malfunctions or other catastrophes. I can even grudgingly accept one fish gulping down another.

But these dang cichlids...I dunno, I just can't warm up to the little psychopaths. My dominant male Cichlasoma dimerus just killed his subordinate male buddy yesterday. Found the body floating in the stock tank this morning, and could not for the life of me figure out what had happened...until I saw the bigger guy hovering at the bottom, looking up at me and the carcass. Sounds pretty normal for cichlids, right?

Well, get this: the two males were in separate stock tanks, each with his own female consort. We have had a spurt of extremely warm weather lately...the water temperature in those tanks is well over 70F...and that was enough to goad this idiot fish into jumping out of his tank and into the adjacent one. He couldn't just jump out and die in the grass? Did he see me place his victim into that tank next to him? Do I need to blindfold these moron fish when I move them, or perhaps do it under cover of darkness while wearing night-vision optics? As one of my apprentices used to say: "Qu'est-ce que f**k???"

Could have been worse, I suppose. If he had jumped the other way, he would have landed in the other tank with my Gymnogeophagus rhabdotus colony. I doubt he would have bothered them, but who knows? I mean...he's a cichlid.

 

[danotaylor]

FINWIN crikey that sucks mate. I may have missed something amidst the names of your fishies, but what species are you telling us about?

 

[FINWIN]

FINWIN crikey that sucks mate. I may have missed something amidst the names of your fishies, but what species are you telling us about?

Honduran Redpoints (They're related to Convicts, supposedly milder). I recently lost one of two original males (see "Slade" thread). One of his adult sons Squiggy took over as tank boss. Both Pink Marbles. They were big, 7 inches.

The huge striped males are all lost to injury, disease and/or hierarchy fighting. I have two remaining in the 5-6 inch range. I suspect they're survivors because they avoid fights and conflict and mind their own buisness.

The other dominant pink marble male Mongo (brother to Slade) is back in full a-hole mode with hyper aggression. He may have offed his nephew or had something to do with it.

 

[duanes]

I know this sounds a bit excessive to many, but I believe, in a 125, any more that 1 male of a single species that gets larger than 5" is too many.
Maybe a male and a few females, and some non-terrirorial non-cichlids.
As an example here in Panama
In my 1st venture with Andiniacara coeruleopunctatus (a smallish Panamanian cichlid , males usually top out aound 6"), in a 6ft 180 gal,
at the time of maturity, my alpha male killed all other males (10), and a few females, leaving himself and 3 females, he ignored tetras, and other non-ciclids.

And this has seemed to be the case for me with most other cichlds, including ant Amatilania I have kept ( at least 6 species).
Anything larger r=than 5 inches and I figure only 2 cichlid per tank.

When you consider the space where I catch them,, thus is really no surprise.
I might net no more than a half dozen in a river like this.

While in that same river I can catch 100s of tetras.
Although in a smaller stream like the one below, I might find just a pair of Andinoacara

I believe most aquarists (myself included) vastly underestimate the actualn space needed by adult cichlids.
The river above, is barely 20 ft wide, and had a couple deep pools, that make a 6 ft tank seem like barely a puddle.
Below a video in the river, the Utive, notice how many cichlids appear, and compare nubers of non-cichlids.

 

[FINWIN]

I'm so burned out on the losses I tend to agree with you at this point. These are all multigenerational and related HRs. Live and learn the hard way. I figured once I thinned out the herd things would settle, at least for a while. This has been my experience with the HRs:

Male/Male = eventual death and infection from injuries and fighting, even with no females around.
Female/Female = aggression, fighting and harassment. Tend to settle once hierarchy is established. If one or two break rank, the fighting resumes.
Male/Female = chaos and fighting unless breeding. My dominant females would chase and harass the males with divebomb/ambush attacks. I have two that will fight males head on. They are larger and older.

Breeding = both sexes would care for and guard the babies. Females stayed closer to the nest and were vicious when defending fry, attacking anything in a radius of their brood. The females whether striped or pink marble consistently picked the pink marble males first. The hulking striped males with nuchal humps they had no interest in.