problems again! I must be doing something wrong!!

[mowenfast]

How come every time a male red top zebra in my 55 gallon becomes top dog well in this case fish.lol. He starts acting weird,and slugish, and hides among the rocks. The only time you see him is when he sticks his head out of a crevas for a sec. I have all ready lost one dominate male and i dont think i will enjoy losing another. Anyway every other fish in the tank is very active, including the other red tops that are with him.But the dominate male dosnt eat, swim around, pretty much dosnt do anyting except look sad. every minute I look in the tank and this is alot. Becasue I have lots of free time.I'm starting to think that I am doing something wrong. I need help to figure out what is going on here!

[yellowlab]

are you sure he is the dominant male?

[mowenfast]

yes he has to be only one that shows color and by far the largest

[Blueiz]

Ok, to start with I know nothing about this fish. There is one thing I wanted to mention about the way groups are formed, I am pretty sure this goes for all animals, fish. It doesn't matter how big or small, how pretty or how ugly an animal / fish is, they can still dominant. The reaction your fish is having is a sign that it is being picked on, shunned by the group. I haev all ideas that you already have an established group with a dominant fish that does not want to let this new comer in. Therefore they are forcing him out to find a new group, since he is in your aqurium he has no choice but to hide out, or be found and terrorised because he is not part of the group. After a group establishes itself if you remove or add a member to the group, the group has to reestablish itself all over agin. Most of the time this goes unnoticed if the member is excepted, but if the member is not excepted they will be killed or thrown out. Like I said, you may just want to keep this in mind, I am not for positive sure that this applies to fish, may be worth looking into. Just some thoughts!!

[~*LuvMyKribs*~]

Are red top zebras the ONLY species in your tank?

[WarNerv]

I have the same thing in my 120 tank. There are 3 males the dominant male stays close to his cave and spends most of his time in the cave. At least I think he is the dominant male. The red zebra male swims freely around the tank and the other unidentified male I have seen twice in six months. That male is bigger than the dominant male. The tank is also crowded with the two breeding pairs I have now there is about 30 fish in there. This is the second batch of cichlids. The first was only about 6 of them in the tank and the males fought constantly until only the red zebra was left alive. It could be that there is not enough room for establishing territories. But this is just a guess. I am working on getting rid of some of my fish and building other tanks to see if I'm correct.

[mowenfast]

Are red top zebras the ONLY species in your tank?

no there is 3 smaller red zebras-about 10 other mix and match cichlids that are about 1.5 inches long and there is a huge rock formation in the tank.

[~*LuvMyKribs*~]

It could be that there is another dominant fish of another species in the tank, and every time a red top zebra becomes dominant it rivals the other fish, and in turn gets its butt kicked.

What other species do you have, do you know? It would help figure out if another fish is likely more aggressive.


:)
-Diana