Bought a new pair of Bubmblebee cichlids

I agree, 9" would be THE max size. However, I stand by this number. I have see so many 7"+ crabro's over the years.

Not sure I read this anywhere in particular. If I had to guess Silve Shark some of your info could wrong for a couple of reasons.
1) Many of the books written address cichlids in the wild. As useful as these books are, some fish grow larger in the aquarium under optimal conditions.
2) Anyone can run a website with info they find or ...make up. Heck I could have a webpage saying I have a great white shark in a 20g tank. Read carefully and cross reference info. I would imagine many cichlid sites are full of regurgitated information with no first hand experience.
3)LFS info is ALWAYS favorable. Remember they want you to buy the fish! Who would buy a 9" bumble bee?

The fish seem to group together for protection. Once they have settled in and feel comfortable they will establish territories.
Mbuna pair behavior does not include swimming around together side by side anyway. Chasing and dancing is more like it.

ttl
 
What would be good dither fish for these guys?? They seem to hide a lot and thought maybe some dither fish will surpress their aggression when they get older.
 
I have never kept dither fish w/ my rift lake cichlids. I don't have experience with that. To tell you the truth mbuna don't need dithers. If the stocking levels are correct you won't need them. I think the tank may be too small as it is.

Give the fish some time. They will come out.
 
TTL, can you desribe more of their "courtship" behavour?? I have noticed that my 2 will chase each other a bit, but I don't know what you mean by dancing??? I know it is too soon to tell, but I want to know in advance. Thanks for the great info ttl!!
 
I could ramble on about mbuna courting for quite sometime. The best thing I would advise you to do is go and buy a good book on them.

I said dancing. Included in this is: circling, quivering, flashing, brightening up... etc. Basically, you'll know it when you get there. At 1.5 inches, you'll have a long way to go.

ttl

Maybe some pictures would help? At 1.5" I could not even guess at the sex. Perhaps someone with more breeding experience with the crabro could help. Just sit on them for a while, let them reach 3".
 
Got a new toy for Christmas..... a Filstar XP3!!!!! Took me about half an hour to setup and about 5 minutes to prime it and I was ready to go!! It is a neat setup!! Reason why I got such a large filter was so I have rom for bigger tanks!! I hope anybody else who has this system is as happy with it as I am!!
 
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