Moving cichlids home around

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smokeythebair

smokeythebair

Plecostomus
MFK Member
Nov 17, 2010
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My cichlids all have their own part of the tank and defend their territory from others. Everytime I do a water change i been moving the stuff around to see how they would react. My yellow lab loves this skull i got and he hides in there all the time, but if i move it to the other side of the tank hes afraid to go for it because of the socolifi. I was told also you will have one fish in the tank that is the leader but i don't think that is true in my tank. For wks my yellow lab was the leader now it switched to the socolifi. Anyone else try moving things around alot to see how they react??? I love watching them work and switch places on the leader board. Very awesome fish. Im still new to fish keeping but i would have to say cichlids are by far my favorite fish so far. I like my community tank but my cichlid tank i could get a six pack and watch for hrs.
 
Anytime I add a new fish, I intentionally move stuff around. But, since I mostly have rock work and large driftwood pieces, I try to avoid it lol. I do move plants often :)
 
I'm always moving stuff in my aquarium. Everytime I have to net a fish I remove all the rocks. Those africans are really fast. I really enjoy how curious they are. They are always investigating the new rock arrangment. Although their inquisitiveness can be a bad thing. Last night I took the protective cover off of the siphon tube for the hob filter in my 29 gallon, to put on the 550 gph pump that feeds the canister in my 55. A Pseudotropheus socolofi swam up the tube and got stuck and died. Oops, I should have know better. Stupid me...
 
how is your socolofi?? Mine is real aggressive. Are they one of the more agg african cichlids?
 
rule of thumb .. always change rock scaping when adding new cichlids. Instead of your established cichlids guarding their territories, they are forced to find and establish a new territory and spend less time harassing new tank mates !
 
The male socolofi was super aggressive. He was the dominant male in the tank. I kept him in a 55 with some other africans, but when I added 2 blue zebras I thought he was going to kill them. So I moved him to a 29 so the zebras could claim some territory and I was hoping he would lose his spot in the chain of command. Well i guess he did.
 
All the research i've done on them says they are more of a mild tempered african, but most of the posts i've read from people that actually own them all say the same thing. The males are real aggressive, and they breed like convicts.
 
I move stuff around all the time. Not specificaully to c how they react thow. Mainly because you have to take stuff out and move it around to do gravel vacs any ways. It does keep aggression down because no one has a set territory because it is constantly changing around. But deffenitly allways do it when adding new fish.
 
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