I have a 55 gallon tank with 14 African cichlids in it and rocks stacked as high as I could to give them plenty of hiding places and everyone got along fine. then I had a canister filter blow out (my fault) and the tank had to be moved into the laundry room while I took up the floor and dried out the room. I decided to leave the tank completely bare in the laundry room with just a sponge filter and the fish still got along fine, I'm guessing because there were no hiding places to fight over.
move forward a week and I move the tank back to it's original spot and set it back up, I'm running out of time so I only put half the rocks back in and was gonna put the rest back in this weekend. Last night without enough hiding spots for everyone but enough to fight over my aquarium had a brawl which left 3 Johanni and 1 Kenyi dead and most of the other fish a bit beat up with a few clear winners holding the good hiding spots.
So some hiding spots won't cut it. they ether have to have enough for everyone or none at all or your gonna end up with dead fish.
Interestingly the fish that seems to have come out on top is my Electric Blue Hap who has always been in the lower half of the pecking order. All the other fish in the tank are Mbuna and usually gang up on him.
move forward a week and I move the tank back to it's original spot and set it back up, I'm running out of time so I only put half the rocks back in and was gonna put the rest back in this weekend. Last night without enough hiding spots for everyone but enough to fight over my aquarium had a brawl which left 3 Johanni and 1 Kenyi dead and most of the other fish a bit beat up with a few clear winners holding the good hiding spots.
So some hiding spots won't cut it. they ether have to have enough for everyone or none at all or your gonna end up with dead fish.
Interestingly the fish that seems to have come out on top is my Electric Blue Hap who has always been in the lower half of the pecking order. All the other fish in the tank are Mbuna and usually gang up on him.
