breeding very aggressive fish

Hey everyone.
I'm looking for some thoughts on the breeding tank for my zebra Chilumbas.
I have 1 male (the one in the video) and three females in a 55. He's really aggressive, that is nobody's been killed, but he sure does harass those girls.
I tried one rock pile, two rock piles, a continuous rock pile, and now I'm wondering if I'd be better off removing the rocks completely. I haven't tried to breed any fish this big and aggressive before, even the S. freyeri was nice to his girls.
J

In my limited experience, the more rocks the better!

I have had some success in dividing rock piles into two separate areas and leaving the middle to swim in.

But some species are extremely aggressive no matter what we do.

Good luck to you!

I agree with Mark. The more rocks the better. It gives the females some spaces to hide. For my Tropheus and the Petrochromis I built two rock piles like Mark suggested. Built the piles up right to the surface.
Good luck,

Jocelyn, do you have any more females that you can add?

I kept a large group of auratus for a few years with plenty of spawning going on, but I had many females to each male.

You need much more fish in there. With only 3 females and one aggressive male in a 55 gallon tank will be hard to get a successful breed. He will probebly ending up killing the females. Use more females and rock work. If he still is overly aggressive after that. Change the rock work in the tank and keep it in total darkness for a few days. This is a method that offten works against over aggresssion with African riftlake cichlids. I know of breeders that use this if they get problems in demasoni, Tropheus and other aggressive species tanks.

theswede wrote:You need much more fish in there. With only 3 females and one aggressive male in a 55 gallon tank will be hard to get a successful breed. He will probebly ending up killing the females. Use more females and rock work. If he still is overly aggressive after that. Change the rock work in the tank and keep it in total darkness for a few days. This is a method that offten works against over aggresssion with African riftlake cichlids. I know of breeders that use this if they get problems in demasoni, Tropheus and other aggressive species tanks.

Good call!

I appeares that after growing out my group of juvies since last year, I much have wound up with only 4 females out of 11 fish. The "undecideds"
keep turning out to be males. I have sold or traded extra males as they have appeared, but now the "undecides" appear to be two smaller males,
and one pretty sure female, but this female is and has always been way darker than any of the other fish, even when I first received them from
Carolina Cichlids. I guess I'm going to have to call the breeder and ask him if this sometimes occurs naturally or there was a possiblitly of the wrong fish being sent. In stead of being the dull steel/blue gray with bars of the other 3 females, she is almost a charcoal gray with bars. Other than that, she looks the same as the others.
I think I will try taking out all the rockes and putting them back in, adding more, and see if it will cool his jets down a little......
Thanks for the replies. I'll keep ya'll posted.

J you can keep the female in with the others and just not keep her fry if you don't like her looks.

I was thinking of doing that, actually maybe separating some of her fry --
if these guys ever spawn!-- and growing them out to see how they look

Try adding some dither fish to take some of the aggression.
That will some times keep him occupied.
Trouble is most dither fish won't hold up well with these crazy fish long either.
Austrailian Rainbows may be okay. They are very fast and don't just hang around to get beat up on.
Drop about 6 in with them until you can find what you are looking for.

Are these 4 fish the only thing you have in the 55?

They are all thats in there just now. The dominant male would likely kill the two smaller males, I don't dare put them in there.
I don't want to risk my breeding groups of Rusties or labs, so I'm kinda
in a quandry. Tank mates would have to be a goodly number of something
pretty hardy, I think.
The two male labs that are in the 90 with the smaller male zebras are definely the subordinate fish in there, the black on their lower fins even looks washed out now since I put them in there.
I'm going to try a rearrangement of rocks, adding the dark female back,
and hope that helps...

Yeah I don't think your odds would be to high with the labs or rusties. This would be a good excuse to make a trip to Dave's to pick up something that would go with them. When you do decide on something it might be a good idea to take them out for a day or 2 then reintroduce them to the tank.

Originally the group of zebras grew up with the Rusties, and they kind of ignored each other, the Rusties males harassed each other pretty good.
I sold one male Rusty and 2 or 3 females to a guy here in Corpus back in the fall, and the rest I put in the 55 with the labs and Z O's. I'm going to spend the day today cleaning some filters and doing some water changes, I male try some moving about of fish, too.
I just need more tanks!!! (tell that to Stu, lol)

football mom wrote:
I just need more tanks!!! (tell that to Stu, lol)

Hey Stu, Jocelyn needs more tanks! Man up and get them for her.

Do you think he heard me J?

Please get this Dear Lady some more tanks Stu..

She seems like such a nice lady..

Jocelyn, hope this helps..

Thanks, guys! lol
Stu says he thinks we all need a little psychiatric help, oh well, nice try.
Actually, whenever I get my tile in the room that leads out to the patio,
I'm gonna get me a BIG tank, ha ha!

Well, I rearranged all the rocks, put the dark female back in, and put the 4 big female Obliquidens in with the zebras. The male seems to have cooled down quite a bit, so I'll just have to wait and see how it goes.

One thing that seemed to help (although it didn't completely eliminate the fighting) in my aggressive Mbuna tank was to keep the temperature at the low end of comfortable and have smaller feedings 3 times a day.