These are great fish. My favorite all time of Malawi cichlids. Juvenile fish are not very agressive at first. As the males start to grow though they can get very aggressive. Especially when they want to spawn. Most of the time if a female is not ready to breed the male will kill her especially if they were not raised together. It is best to keep only one male with four or five females in a large tank (100 gal +). You may still have to keep a divider in the tank as the male will get extremly aggressive when he wants to spawn. Although this is the time when the male is the most beautiful. I have never been able to keep more than one male as more than one usually results in the death of one even in a large tank. The last time I kept this species was some years ago. I bought 3 from Walmart believe it or not. When they still had fish in thier store. They were trying to get rid of them and were 3 for $6.00. I grew these out for a little more than a year and had one male reach about 10". One day I came home to find the other two fish killed by this big male The other 2 fish were female and were about 7-8" and thought they could hold thier own as they were raised together. This male lived alone for the rest of his life in a community Tang. tank. He was never aggressive to any other fish except his own. I even tried introducing a much larger female 12". Kept them divided for about 6 months until I thought they might get along. Within 24 hours of putting them together had to separate as the male almost killed the female again. This fish lived for about 6 years. Not sure of the lifespan of these fish and have no reason why he died, just did one day.
Dimidochromis Compressiceps Experience
- Thread starter wantokeeptrout
- Start date
AGGRESSIVE, I've not personally kept but witnessed and read on them. They are similar in disposition to these other fish:
Champsochromis caeruleus
&
Ctenochromis horei
The one diff I would sight is the fact that they are prone to plucking eyes out of sockets of rival fish over shredding fins. There is no tank to large! I would try some dither fish, monos or something with them to see if that works.
Champsochromis caeruleus
&
Ctenochromis horei
The one diff I would sight is the fact that they are prone to plucking eyes out of sockets of rival fish over shredding fins. There is no tank to large! I would try some dither fish, monos or something with them to see if that works.
I have never read of their eye biting behaviour yet, i was so scared i would come home to blind fish.
right now the 5 are in a 75 with no tankmates and, i'm pretty sure i got at least 1 male. he pretty much lost his stripe and has a dorsal fin that is turning red and his anal fin is becoming a bright orange shade, he's about half an inch bigger then the others. I have a bit more cover in the form of a small number of large (fist diameter) caves, a small val (planning to add more) and hiding spots for the lessers to hide. The only issues with aggression are around feeding time since everyone swarms around the food which degenerates into chasing afterward, when the light's off they actually group together. Also the dominant is acting a little odd, every now and then he'll chase the others away from the smallest one, which is a little over half his size, then he arches his body and vibrates fast while circling what i believe is a female (no color except for a little red in the dorsal fin and stripes). After about a minute hey'll just stop and head up to the top half of the tank which he claimed. He only does this occasionally (seen it only 2-3 times) and never chases the smallest one at all,
if you want to discern how many males you really have you have to pull your dominant male out. Then wait a month if you have another male he should color up. soon as he does pull him and wait you could have 4 males 1 female from the sound of it. The dominant male will out compete the others for food and are rumored to emit a stunting hormone into the water so other males don't grow at a similar rate. Its best you determine if fish are male when young as at a later date it could prove too late for such an aggressive fish. the older the male the slower they are to color in my experience. When I pull red empress males the sub dominant will color up in a day or two when they are 2 inches but for adult males it can take 6 or more months and they won't have as permanent of coloring as the long time dominant male. it fade immediately when challenged etc. I've found my reds fry have grown to be 2/3 male and 1/3 female. It makes it hard to get them to all color up properly without enough girls to go around.
re: the eye-biting behaviour. from what i understand it's pretty uncommon. haven't seen mine exhibit these tendancies yet, then again they are by no means mature.
oh man, catching them is going to suck, they're really fast and one of them jumped staight up 18 inches out of a bucket when I moved them. It took me about 45 minutes to catch them in a 30 with only a few flat rocks, let alone a 75 with lots of hiding spots...
You don't have to but if the male goes into mate mode and the ratios are right you'll have 1 fish quickly. If you pull him and 1 month on no one colors up you are set! Hope you have a 6 ft tank (or larger) in your future! They get big fast, and more so than their size their speed really requires a big tank or you'll bet lip bruising real quick.
Lot of misinformation on this thread.
I've kept them at various sizes, alone in an all-male tank and in a group. One of the less aggressive and demanding Malawi haps I've ever kept. Compared to any Nimbochromis or something like a Aristochromis, they are puppy dogs. Shoot, your average dominant male peacock is more aggressive than these guys.
In terms of conspecific aggression, any dominant male fish is a danger to a second male of his type or a single female (that is why we keep female-heavy groups).
They do not bite eyes either.
They won't swim a whole lot as they inhabit grass beds in the lake and tend to stay still, looking for an ambush opportunity. Most often, they will hang in the top corners of the tank and keep to themselves.
I've kept them at various sizes, alone in an all-male tank and in a group. One of the less aggressive and demanding Malawi haps I've ever kept. Compared to any Nimbochromis or something like a Aristochromis, they are puppy dogs. Shoot, your average dominant male peacock is more aggressive than these guys.
In terms of conspecific aggression, any dominant male fish is a danger to a second male of his type or a single female (that is why we keep female-heavy groups).
They do not bite eyes either.
They won't swim a whole lot as they inhabit grass beds in the lake and tend to stay still, looking for an ambush opportunity. Most often, they will hang in the top corners of the tank and keep to themselves.
