Cichlids gonna Cichlid...

[FINWIN]

Well, my first experience with cichlids has been a rollercoaster of fun and pain in the ass...started off with three massive blood parrots and two baby oscars (one albino, one red). Everything was fine until my pink parrot Patch, laid eggs. Everything immediately went to hell ...she attacked both males (Kong and Boss). Busted Kong in the mouth leaving him with a split upper lip and black mouth. Beat up Boss giving him a body bruise. Boss got stress spots immediately once he was tag teamed by the other two. So once they started fighting no tactic was going to stop it. Not rearranging the tank, not lowering the temp, not a timeout. So basically Kong was beating on Boss, then Boss would beat on Kong a little, but Patch would beat on everybody, charging across the tank looking to claim all 225 gallons for herself. She is utterly fearless and nothing phases her. The Oscars ignored the crazy at first. But because of the hyper activity and stress ICH made an appearance soon after. Boss got a white dot on his gill and two days after separating him in a small holding tank the red oscar (Brick) had white sprinkles on one of his fins. SO...treating a 225 ain't fun. So I've been forced into MTS (Multiple Tank Syndrome) before I had planned. Boss and Patch are in separate 10 gallon tanks being treated for Ich as well (not showing but exposed). I'll be looking at separate 40 gallon tanks for them this month and set it up. Sadly, my albino oscar Ice didn't take well to the ich medication and perished last night. So the long term plan is get the 40s for Boss and Patch. Keep the 10s as quarantine tanks down the road for new fish...and leave Kong and Brick alone in the 225 for now. I heard so many times how Oscars can eat. Damn...Brick could eat his weight daily. Purchased on 12/15 at 2 inches as of today (12/27) he is now 2 3/4 inches long, 3/4 inches thick and 1 1/4 inches high not including fins. There are new growth ridges showing on the fins. He's half red and half tiger it seems with a pretty maize side pattern and 'sooty' face. But he won't stop wiggling long enough for me to get a good shot. Greedy stinker would eat until he explodes if I let him. Basically looks roided out...I may have a future monster on my hands.

 

[duanes]

In nature, most mated pairs of 5"+ cichlids will guard a square area of at least 250 gallons, and any cichlid that crosses that line, and can't escape is doomed.
In all my adult cichlid tanks, of 100 + gallons, there were usually only two cichlids (a pair) to a tank, and in those, strong dividers were close by, ready to be installed at a moments notice.
I have learned over time (almost 60 years of cichlid keeping), it doesn't matter what the books say, even what most experts believe about minimum proper tank size, or about what fits together in a tank, that is my norm, and usually determined by the cichlids themselves, my human opinion is of no consequence.
Sometimes a large crowd will work, but only if they've all grown up together, if large amounts of water are changed almost every day, and even then, one must be prepared with extra tanks at the ready in case, and when something goes haywire.

 

[FINWIN]

In nature, most mated pairs of 5"+ cichlids will guard a square area of at least 250 gallons, and any cichlid that crosses that line, and can't escape is doomed.
In all my adult cichlid tanks, of 100 + gallons, there were usually only two cichlids (a pair) to a tank, and in those, strong dividers were close by, ready to be installed at a moments notice.
I have learned over time (almost 60 years of cichlid keeping), it doesn't matter what the books say, even what most experts believe about minimum proper tank size, or about what fits together in a tank, that is my norm, and usually determined by the cichlids themselves, my human opinion is of no consequence.
Sometimes a large crowd will work, but only if they've all grown up together, if large amounts of water are changed almost every day, and even then, one must be prepared with extra tanks at the ready in case, and when something goes haywire.

Agree. The strange thing is the parrots were tankmates at the store so I figured it had a decent chance of working. However, it WAS crowded with Jack Dempseys and one gigantic female parrot who was floaty and full of eggs. Normally my approach would have been maybe five or six parrots but having two oscars at the time I had no intention of going that route. Charismatic fish but driving me crazy all the same.