jewels with my yellow labs=bad???

[cleung]

Hi everyone,

So I'm pretty new to all this and had started up a tank with 4 yellow labs who were doing quite well. Tonight I was at the LFS and bought 2 jewels on a whim, I figured that they would be fine as they were in a tank with a bunch of yellow labs at the store. After coming home and doing some research I'm a little worried that they will not be nice to my yellow labs. So far since introducing them into the tank my yellow labs don't seem very happy with the new mates and have been chasing them around. What do you suppose I should do? Should I take the jewels out?

[onefishtwofish]

jewels can be very aggressive. if you have the room i would move themout. especially if they r a breeding pair or hope to breed them

[cleung]

I'm not sure if they are a breeding pair I'm not sure how to tell if they are male or female and these 2 aren't really showing much colour right now as they just came from the store.

[Cichlid2010]

Providing them with some hiding place would help. When I add new cichlids to my tank, I normally feed existing fish a lot, cool down the temperature a little and turn off the light (and leave it off for a day) before adding the new fish in. Old fish will chase the new fish when they first see them, but they should be ok in a couple of days.

[cleung]

They have lots of hiding places I'm just concerned that they will harm my yellow labs

[pistolpete]

A lot depends on how big your tank is and how many shelter spots you have. If you have a time out net or quarantine tank, so that you can intervene in case of trouble, then you could wait and see how things pan out.

[cleung]

Well I've left them in there so far and have added some Kenyi's tot he mix and everyone seems to be getting along just fine for now. I do have a small tank that I can setup for a time out area if needed. My tank is a standard 60g 48x24x18 and I currently have 4 yellow labs, 4 kenyi's and 2 jewels. I have a bunch of rocks and a hollow plastic log in it for hiding right now and I'm currently looking to get some of those cichlid stones so hopefully that should be adequate.

[cleung]

Well after some further research it turns out that the 2 jewels were actually jack dempseys. I've taken them back to the LFS and got some albino zebras instead

[Raf]

good move

try and stay with african cichlids now that you have a good amount and try to give them the kind of tank parameters they are used to, higher pH and GH, lots of rocks for hanging out in and a vegeterian diet.

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