Maleri Mayhem?

[dcallen]

Well I added a pretty large Maleri the other day with my smaller Peacock Cichlids and he has since taken over the tank and chases my other fish like crazy to the point that the others hide a lot and I can't really enjoy them. The big question here is should I remove him and add a smaller Peacock of some kind or should I keep him and see what happens? I fear he may eventually kill some of the other fish if this continues. Thanks in advance for all your help.

[Verse914]

who all is in the tank? what size is the tank? How much larger is he compared to everyone else?

[dcallen]

Hi,

He is much larger than the others about twice the size of some for sure and maybe more than that. The other inhabitants are various other Peacocks and one Yellow Lab. Thanks for the advice...


The tank is a 70 gallon, there are 8 fish in the tank at the moment.

[Oxboy666]

You may have the double negative situation of a dominant male who is not only bigger in size but also exercising mating activity.

If there are females in the tank, you will have this aggressive behavior until the other males catch up in size and begin challenging the dominant male. Unfortunately, this could be a year or two away. I suspect this is the case - a tank full of just male peacocks will get you a lot of posturing and the occassional nipped fin or high speed chase around the tank. If you don't want to wait, you have 2 choices to calm things down:

1. Remove him
2. Remove all the females

If you're not interested in breeding, I might suggest an all bachelor peacock tank with nothing but males. Your tank is large enough to handle 6-8 adult male peacocks, as well as additional 4-6 adult fish of similar temperment, like your yellow lab.