Dealing with aggression

[rich16]

After the losses of my vacation disaster last month, I lost 11 of my 17 Melanochromis cyaneorhabdos "maingano". The dominant male was one of the half dozen survivors, and I think someone has peed in his NLS...

Now the problem I have is that there is not as many distractions for his aggression...and he is a nasty piece of work. He basically keeps 4 of the others pinned to the top corners of the tank - with the exception of feeding time, when all sins are forgiven...

So, if I get rid of Mr. Nasty, will one of the subdominants take over for him, or would I be best to rehome the other 4 or 5, and leave him the only maingano in the tank?

Tankmates are: Red Zebras, Acei, Peacocks, juvenile yellow labs. He leaves everyone else alone..

HELP?

[-DC-]

You've got it, remove the overly aggressive male and a sub-dom male will take over his breeding duties.

Another trick is too add/rearrange rock work, by removing all the territorial lines the overly aggressive male will likely fall back into a cave of his choice too claim a territory. however this might also set off aggression amongst the other species or between him and the ominate males of another species over space.

In my experience Melanochromis cyaneorhabdos is one of those species that really NEEDS larger numbers too last in a tank when compared to zebras or lab's for example who seem fine in smaller groups. Without the larger groups too disperse aggression Any male who steps up will eventually become too much for the others too handle. they will pick off the competition then stress the females too death trying too breed.

what is your male-female ratio ? Can you get more females ? OR do you have a spare tank ? In your shoes i'd separate a sub dominate male , and your females into another tank breed them keep and pick out some new females, i dont suggest using the DOM male as i'm assuming you have few females left and he will likely beat them too death trying too breed.

[rich16]

I actually think that most of my females were among the losses, so I'm pretty sure I have a horribly backwards male to female ratio right now. I do have another tank I could set up, but it may result in a not-so-happy wife....

I think I may just re-home the remaining 5, and leave the nasty ol' bugger to linger wondering where all his girl friends have gone!

[AfricanCichlids]

sounds like your tank is big enough to stock it with some different mbuna groups to keep trouble maker busy. Most times way overstocking helps, but bumping up filtration is $$. I Have extra fish sale / trade

[-DC-]

Different Mbuna wont likely calm Melanochromis cyaneorhabdos, along with may other melanochromis ssp. really need a large group that's very female heavy going too keep them together. I had 1.3 in a 160 with over 60 other mbuna of a dozen or more other species and they still weeded themselves down too one male.

Auratus are even worse you need over a dozen for it too work out long term once they mature. Could Try removing the Dom male and the females and keeping the sub dom males together, this sometimes curbs aggression but i personally dont think it'll work with that particular species.

If you can't boost your numbers of female's then i'd probably go with keeping only the nicest male and be safe in the end that's likely what you'll end up with any way!


Bit of a of side bar here but if you like Melanochromis species maybe look into one that has a yellow female like melanochromis johannii or interruptus I find the males are just as aggressive but the difference is they will also be distracted and distribute aggression towards other fish like your lab's and red zebra's since they will look similar too his females.

Just for fun, here's an example of a Red zebra male distracting my male interruptus

(click on photo too play)