Poss to introduce more?

[nickmcmechan]

Is it possible to introduce more Malawis to my already eastablished malawi setup?
If you do, how do you do it to avoid agression?

[AfroCichlid]

Well, there are a few tricks you can try. However you do it you may end up losing a few fish, so know that going in. You can rearrange the decor to break up the territories, make sure there are enough caves to accomodate Mbuna, leave the lights off for the first day of introduction, generally try to make it a new environment for all the fish in the tank. There will be some quarrels over territory, but hopefully you can add a few without too much damage being done. Good luck.

[chasingdawn99]

be sure to get there size as close as possible to all the fish in the tank, make sure it is healthy , only try introducing one fish at a time and be sure to include several things for them to hide and swim in and out of, the are very touchy about their turf....i am no expert though and i have lost a few fish in the past ( not to many...lol) just monitor the tank once you first introduce the new guy

[kay-bee]

Most mbuna's are prone to treating newly added mbuna's as intruders to their territory. Adding new mbuna's in groups will help. Adding mbuna's one or two at a time will risk aggression, especially if they are of a different species (easier to single out and 'target'). The only exception to this rule (in my experience) is to add a matured mbuna to a tank containing lots of smaller juveniles, such as adding a 4" mbuna to a tank containing a bunch of 2" juvies.

Other methods include reorganizing the tank, or adding the new fish after dark will help as well (as it doesn't 'advertise' their sudden arrival). You could actually try several methods concurrently (acquire a group [4-6] of new mbunas, rearrange the tank, and add them after dark.

Smaller fish may be easier to intergrate (less trouble will occur if adding four 2.5" red zebras to a tank containing 5"-6" red zebras than adding a 5" red zebra to a tank already containing large red zebras). Smaller mbuna's are generally not viewed as a threat (their size by default generally places them at the lower echelon of the tank's pecking order).

Adding new fish of a less aggressive species in a tank which already has that species represented in the tank in suitable quantity works the best (for example in my 125gal tank I had about 3 dozen mbunas, including one dozen yellow labs. The addition of 1-3 more yellow labs went unnoticed by the entire tank).

Caution needs to be considered when dealing with the more aggressive species, especially those with the males which have low or no tolerance to other males of their own kind. Generally you want to add the most aggressive species last.

[Coler]

What exactly have you got in there at the moment Nick ?

Just in addition to what Kaybee has said, in my pretty unorthodox set-up (much smaller tank - constant balancing exercise) I have had success in adding a group of smaller fish, all of which bar one mystery death (I think weak stock) have integrated nicely. Basically I had 7 fish at the time, all coming up on 4 inches, one or three of which were beating the tar out of each other and I therefore added 4 or 5 more of 2 inches or less. I found that the smaller fish providing more targets for aggression, essentially distracting the older ones from each other, but were plenty small (and spunky enough) enough to slip away into the rockwork. The adults were not really serious about going after them anyway; I am thinking the young 'uns were not perceived as serious threats.

I will have to re-adjust as they mature, no doubt, but presently they are all gaining size and the mix is stable.

In your nice big set-up however I am thinking you can do things in far more orthodox fashion subject to what the total number and gender breakdown is.