Territoriality of Female Socolofi?

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subliminalanarchy

Aquarium Advice Activist
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Dec 9, 2009
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san diego
I have 15 mbunas in my standard 55g. 5 yellows, 5 rustys, 5 socolofi. Most of them are still under 3". Out of all of these fish, only 2 socolofis have claimed territory.

I was thinking that since those 2 are so much more aggressive than all the other fish in the tank they are probably males. What do you think? Are most female mbuna territorial like this?

Thanks for your thoughts
 
The only time I see aggression or territory issues with my females is when they're holding fry, then they will stake out a spot and chase out some but not all fish, some of the males will still chase them away.
 
Mbuna aggression isn't necessarily dependent on the gender of the territorial fish.

Female socolofi's can be just as aggressive as the males, particularly full grown females. I've seen my 4.5" female socolofi's win domination bouts against 3.5" sub-adult male zebras. I've never seen a dominant female socolofi challenge a similarly sized or larger male socolofi in my tanks.

Regarding mouthbrooding, I've observed female pseudotropheus demasoni's which become slightly more aggressive when they're mouthbrooding (usually toward other female demasoni's) when they're mouthbrooding.

Of all the mbuna species I've kept, I've found female vs female aggression among metriaclima msobo's (for some reason) to be the worse.
 
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