Devil problems

[Reaper13]

I've been on this red devil, midas, midevil community kick lately. I've seen it done by others, but I'm having trouble managing the aggressive of the amphilophus among the hierarchy. My idea is to eventually have a 180-240 community with some texas etc in the mix.

Currently I have 2 labiatus (removed 2 due to risk of death), 2 cons, & a male tex. I can't keep the dominate devil no matter which one it becomes from trying to kill it's own kind. They were in a 125, but I couldn't keep track of how badly someone was getting beat on so now they're in a spare 75 (all 2-3" plenty of space). I have plenty of caves/decor, but it doesn't even phase them. I figured aggression would trickle down to the tex/cons, however it turned into devil on devil & con on con crime with a neutral tex.

Anybody have a setup like this that worked out? What stock list & tank size. I'm up for any suggestions on stocking, etc really.

 

[Rocksor]

In my experience, having 2 of the same species always led to those 2 fighting each other first with a passion, others were ignored 75% of the time. Then the 2nd one to get beat one by the dominant cichlid was the other cichlid that was close to the same size. The largest cichlid ignored the smallest cichlid over 80% of the time because it was not competition, hence why your cons are ignored by both the labiatus.

If you don't want the two labiatus always fighting each other, get a couple more labiatus to spread out the aggression amongst themselves or just stick to 1 labiatus, 1 texas, 1 con, plus other cichlids of different species (possibly vieja).

 

[castro1212]

never kept devils or tex but have kept cons before. once they hate one another they will always hate each other. it might be a good idea to just keep one of each

 

[Reaper13]

In my experience, having 2 of the same species always led to those 2 fighting each other first with a passion, others were ignored 75% of the time. Then the 2nd one to get beat one by the dominant cichlid was the other cichlid that was close to the same size. The largest cichlid ignored the smallest cichlid over 80% of the time because it was not competition, hence why your cons are ignored by both the labiatus.

If you don't want the two labiatus always fighting each other, get a couple more labiatus to spread out the aggression amongst themselves or just stick to 1 labiatus, 1 texas, 1 con, plus other cichlids of different species (possibly vieja).

I originally had 4 labiatus & thought that would be the ticket. The 2 most dominant singled out the 2 less dominant & were ripping in pretty good. So I removed the 2 more dominant & put them in their own thunder dome. Well the 2 lesser ones started on each other. After a few weeks I added the more dominant ones back. Then the less dominant ones were relentlessly hunting the originally more dominant ones which then I had to remove those again or let them be killed.

Maybe ordering a group of 8-10 3" to put in the 125 would be the way to go. Then hopefully I could cull until I got 4 or so that meshed. I would really like to have around 4 labiatus, 2 cons, & maybe 2 tex with some fillers. Vieja's have been good bouncers in the past with my parachromis. Maybe adding a bigger pearsei would be helpful.