It's been a little over a week since these guys arrived here, and they're settling in little by little. Still very timid and prone to flight at movement in the room, but they "recover" much more quickly and have started to come out to beg for food a bit when they see me in front of their tank. They did actually start to eat the epsom-soaked NLS after I posted that they had refused it, so tonight was day 5/last day of that preventative measure. Tomorrow we can start testing out other foods lol.
They're aggressive little mofos. I know, I know, they're SRT. But they're babies. I was expecting to have essentially the same experience as with the other large aggressive cichlids I've raised over the years, and figured they'd be okay together and live relatively issue-free for at least a couple months. Hell, the group of 6 baby midas just grew out lived together without real issue at all until they started to hit 5-6" in size and paired off to breed. These guys though - it's clear there is a dominant fish who spends most of his free time chasing the others and making life miserable. So my plans have changed - I was using the 55gal they're in as a temporary QT tank for them for treatment purposes, and after a two week period the plan was to move the whole group of 6 into the 5ft, 120gal I have set up and waiting for them...let them grow out together for a couple months until they needing breaking up, but seems they need breaking up now lol. Next weekend, once their 2 weeks of QT is up, I'm instead going to split them ALL up into individual spaces. Given it wasn't the plan, I have to work with what I have, so I'll split the 55gal in half, the 120gal in half, move one into the 8ft tank, and move the last one into my 40 long. Hopefully that will give them time to really settle in and grow out enough for me to pick a favourite one or two and decide on a more permanent living arrangement for the ones I want to keep.
