Holy These guys are brutal sometimes

[Slopster]

Wow I am beside myself right now, not more than 20 mins ago i was downstairs watching my 2 Red Zebras in a courtship ritual one are of the tank was in typical cichlid fashion all dug out and ready for the goods to be delivered, no worries right all of my other Africians were swimming about no problem whilr the 2 Red Zebras did what they had to do, I watched her pick up the fertilized eggs and she is now holding cool right???hmmmm not sure what happened BUT I went upstairs to watch the walking dead, yup it was good, went back down 5 mins ago and in the area where the courtship happens one of my Yellow Lab females has been butchered i mean totally ripped apart, i went in to get her and what was left of her she was solid like she was dead for a week but 10mins ago she was swimming around, all i got to say is WOW What the Frikkin frack just happened???????.

In all honestly she must have done something to piss one of the males off, you gotta love Africians,,, Wow... These guys are brutal sometimes....

[joker1535]

Never interrupt fish doing it

[jobber604]

Never interrupt fish doing it

+1. Don't interrupt the ritual and special dance.

[BelieveInBlue]

I've seen kribs kill cories and the like... And they're supposed an African dwarf cichlid... so yea... damn O.O

[Slopster]

ohh yeah Kribs yup my 2 Kribs took out two of my Red Empress's so yeah they are tough as nails those ones, but i wasn't expecting this from whatever Africian, poor yellow lab, probably in the wrong place at the wrong time..

[-DC-]

I'd say your excited red male decided to try for a second breeding, a red zebra can easily tear apart a yellow lab in minutes and not all females are open too hybrid breeding, i find
most will resist if they can.

Unfortunately if the male is from a larger more aggressive species then you can only hope he handles rejection well... yours apparently does not lol

[monkE]

I'd say your excited red male decided to try for a second breeding, a red zebra can easily tear apart a yellow lab in minutes and not all females are open too hybrid breeding, i find
most will resist if they can.

Unfortunately if the male is from a larger more aggressive species then you can only hope he handles rejection well... yours apparently does not lol

lol well said.

crazy to hear about all this aggression from these Africans.. I've never had any issues in my tank but I suppose it's all about the breeds

[-DC-]

Which species you keep/ mix together , as well as stocking numbers and rock work will all effect the levels of aggression in a Mbuna tank. Space is also a huge factor, and probably the most important factor is the age/maturity of the fish involved.

I find most mbuna mixes work well until breeding starts, thats when you'll start too run into issues with species of similar color , once those breeders begin too fully mature those issues will spread too males of any color and any females who reject them!

I believe this is what discourages allot of Mbuna keepers the longer you do it the harder it becomes too keep fish alive! Nothing more frustrating then researching the species doing everything "right" setting up a tank that works great for 2 years then waking up one morning too one pumped up male finishing off several beaten and dead tankmates simply because he's matured into a prick!

[Slopster]

Yeah it's starting to show, I might have to change things up a bit, right now the main breeder is my Blue Zebra, I've had 3 batchs and a 4th on the way from him, now my Red Zebra male is getting in on it with the 3 Red Females, Also That big ole' Bumblebee we talked about, about a month ago, remember i thought the other bumblebee was a sub-dominat male well turns out he's a she and i got video of them mating on my website check it out Home - The Rift Zone Specializing In Cichlids sorry for the shamless plug.

I'm not sure which one put the boots to my yellow lab?? could have been anyone of the Mbunas in there, in that tank, well in my signature you'll see the ones that are in my 80G,.

I've got lots of rock work and lots of space for swimming and mating, maybe i have to go one step further and over crowd and tone down the Aggression??? or just keep breeding trios of 3 separate specie within the Mbuna?

All i know it's starting to get frustrating, but I WILL NOT LET THIS BEAT ME....

Cheers

Rob.

[cichlid]

in my opinion, you should remove the labs from the 80!

I had a gorgious pair of of livingstoni, the mail wanted to dance, we were stoked! they are a fairly rare fish ( usually you see the giraff chichlid) but she wasnt having it... end result was a dead female, and he killed the female lab I had in the tank too. I had a 5-6"red zebra male, they are brutal! he killed a full sized male electric blue I had.