Red Zebra Aggression

[haglagwr]

I am new to freshwater and recently started a 90 gal. cichlid tank. I got four fish about ten days ago all from Lake Malawi which included a E.B. johanni, cobalt blue, and two red zebras. I now realize after continued research to refrain from getting fish of the same size and color, which is exactly what I did. The main issue that I'm having is that the red zebra approx. 5 inches, is constantly bullying the other zebra. I believe the 'bully' is a male who is picking on the female. Should I return the 'bully' due to his constant aggression? Or should I wait until my cycle finishes and I can get more fish to help reduce his aggression? I'm leaning towards getting rid of him due to the fact that he isn't very attractive and his aggression is stressing ME out! Thanks for your help.

Walt

 

[CraigMac]

If its one male and one female it is probably harassing her trying to mate. That's why they recommend a 1 male to 4 or 5 females, one female will be constantly harassed. I would be sure there are a lot of hiding places and them add another 3 or 4 females.

 

[CraigMac]

Oh, and with malawai's you are always going to be dealing with aggression. Especially when under stocked while you get your stock in place. That's why they suggest to overstock.

I wouldn't return the bully because if you return every bully you're going to be constantly returning fish!!!

Good luck!

 

[Fallout801]

I suggest plenty of cover and caves and at least a 50 gallon tank. If you have two male zebras I would return one, other wise just feed them enough and keep an eye out

 

[CraigMac]

Is your tank cycled? What are the parameters? Once it's cycled I would get your stock up to 25-30 fish. That will help big time with aggression as it will spread out aggression so one fish isn't bullied.

 

[haglagwr]

Thanks for the responses so far. My tank is not cycled yet, nitrates and nitrites are very high, ammonia levels low. Once the cycle finishes I'm planning on getting more fish to spread the aggression, but I wasn't thinking 25-30. 25-30 fish seems like a lot! I was hoping to have 15-20, and i would like to have a great diversity of malawi cichlids. If I get more females (and males) from a different species, would this help or does it have to be strictly red zebras?

 

[kay-bee19]

Adding females of the same species will be the most effective approach.

Adding females of different species would have an somewhat of an effect if the red zebra's aggression was directed at nearly every other mbuna in the tank (greater population spreads the aggression out resulting in less aggression received by any one particular fish).

But even then, adding more females of the same species will attract most of this male's attention towards them (with a lot of that attention being of the procreation nature).

When increasing the number of mbuna's you have it's probably best to get them all at once or as many as your biological filtration can support because as they mature or the more established the mbuna's are in the tank the harder it is to add new mbuna's. You could go for 15-20 and see how that goes (with at least 3-4 of them being female red zebras).