General Chichlid Help

[weezy0722]

I have a 46 gallon Bowed tank. I have had the same setup and fish for about 6 months now with the following:

1 Jack Demsey 5-6 inches
1 Blood Parrot Fish 4 inches
1 Flower Horned Chichlid 3-4 inches
1 picktus catfish 4 inches
1 plecko 6-7 inches.
1 small school of giant danios

My tank has plenty of artifical pants, as well as rocks and drift wood, and a great filter & heater.

I know my fish are fairly agressive however recently their agression level have increased significantly, included deaths to the giant danios (2 of six remain). In particular my blood parrot and flower horned have been fighting with eachother. The blood parrot initiates these fights however no fin nipping has occured durring the altercations I have observed. I was wondering if anyone can give he some hints as to what is going on in my tank and if there is anthing I can do about it. Also I was wondering if anyone can give me a hint as to a type of fish other than danios that can school in my thank.


Thanks
:confused:

[JSchmidt]

That seems like an awful lot of fish for a 46 gallon tank. I wonder if the deaths are due to lack of territory...

Jim

[weezy0722]

I feel as though there is enough territory, based on my observations half of my tanks cover is not being used by my chichlids, when they are not fighting the blood parrot and the flower horn sit right next to eachother and do not do anything, I thought this was pretty strange, for a moment I though they were breeding becuase the flower horn was doing a strange drance like motion around the blood parrot, Do you think I should remove a chichlid? They have all lived in relative harmony for six months untill now?

[Reiner]

Sorry to tell you this but it will only get worse from now on. Once the Flowerhorn starts maturing at about 5-6 inches his / her aggression level will only increase. A single full grown Flowerhorn cichlid should be in a tank no smaller then 75 gallons.

[weezy0722]

thank you for your help I guess the best bet would be to take him out, can I replace him with another fish?

[Reiner]

If you take him out you are still stocked to the max (probably still overstocked) and watch the Jack when he grows up since they can be pretty rough as well in small tanks like your.

[weezy0722]

ok so If I took both them out what types of fish could I replace them with, I would like to keep it simmiar to what I have however

[Reiner]

I would take the Jack and the Flowerhorn out and put a second BP in (make sure the new BP is at least as big as the one you have though)

[weezy0722]

can he be a bit bigger, just cause most of the BP I have seen in shops lately have been slightly bigger than the BP I have in my tank

[Seaman]

yea that should be ok to go bigger...you just dont want the current one to be bigger because he has allready established territoy.