Hello! I am concerned with some very aggressive cichlids in my 20 gallon. The largest fish, a 2.5" polleni cichlid, has lived in the tank for a while. The other two fish, a red zebra and an electric yellow both about 2", have been in the tank for about two weeks.

Even after I rearranged the tank a few days ago to include a couple small caves, thick plant cover, and shallow crevices, I cannot stop the aggressive tendencies of the polleni and red zebra.

The polleni chases the red zebra around the clock. When he gets a break, the red zebra chases the yellow around. Fin damage is minimal at this time, just because the fish are all so fast. It must be exhausting though! The fighting literally never stops.

I'm currently making arrangements for a 45 gallon tank, but that won't be ready for some time. Its hard to create an area where the fish can find refuge because they are similarly sized. Does anyone have some idea as to what I can do in the meantime?


The polleni hiding in the larger cave



The red zebra near the top and the electric yellow in the lower right

What about a tank divider for now??

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10gal fry tank planted with Wisteria, Java Moss, Anuabis and Anacharis
35gal Sponge Bob tank with live bearing tropicals (daughters tank)
15gal planted with Swords, Java Fern, Wisteria and Red Rubin housing 10 fry and 2 bladder snails
55 gal with Oscar (future planted tank with angels and flowerhorns)
55 gal Community tank (platys, mollys, guppys, glass catfish, angels, phantom tetra, red eye tetra and swordtails)

Since I created the thread, I rearranged the tank once more to include even more places to hide...to no avail. So, here is my solution until the parts for my 45 gallon come in:




Also, I plan on buying a few more africans for the 45 to spread the aggression out a little.

LOL Love the Budweiser one!!!

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10gal fry tank planted with Wisteria, Java Moss, Anuabis and Anacharis
35gal Sponge Bob tank with live bearing tropicals (daughters tank)
15gal planted with Swords, Java Fern, Wisteria and Red Rubin housing 10 fry and 2 bladder snails
55 gal with Oscar (future planted tank with angels and flowerhorns)
55 gal Community tank (platys, mollys, guppys, glass catfish, angels, phantom tetra, red eye tetra and swordtails)

Classy caves! There's unfortunately not a whole lot that can be done in a small tank. As long as they feel crampped in the space, they'll aggressively defend their territority. But the solution you've come up with should work for now hopefully. Moving them to a larger tank with more hiding spots and preferably plenty of plant cover should fix things

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When in doubt, do a water change.

Hiding spots, yes, increase in tank size or fewer fish. My mbuna fry numbering 19, have seen shaking of the little buggers to one another. I'm sure once maturity begins a major thin out will need to take place.

African Rift Lake Cichlids get along better when under two conditions:

1.) When more crowded than yours are---for a 20g tank, add up to (8) more Africans. Yes, add!! In a 30g tall, my fish did not become peacefull until there were 15 Africans in it, (7) Electric Yellows, and (8) Demasoni Mbunas. In a 40g tank, I had to put in 35 fish. I know this does not sound right, but I tried it after I read it on several African Cichlid websites and in books several years ago, and it has worked for me and many other people I know---not one failure!!!! Everyone was shocked that it worked!!! Also works with Kribensis, which makes sense since they are also African Cichlids.

2.) Much, much more rock than you have, and you must have about 50% more hiding places than fish. And, the hiding places must have back walls. Yours all have open backs. This leaves the fish open to attack from two directions, and they can never rest. Picture a wall of rock at the back of the tank, but with about a (3) inch gap from the rear glass, for water flow across the back to prevent pollution of the tank.

Stack, or epoxy together some Lava Rock, and go tall (for the epoxy, see last two paragraphs). Lava is very light, so you can put in more of it than the rock you have right now. Get some lava rocks with holes in them, and some without. Epoxy small pieces of lava onto the back openings of the holes to make them into caves with back walls. Epoxy in two or three spots will do the trick, no need to epoxy around the entire small piece. To get the small pieces, break up one piece of lava with a hammer & safety glasses. Put a cloth over the lava while hitting it with the hammer.

Epoxy the main pieces of lava together in a way that puts gaps between the pieces, and epoxy small pieces to the backs of these gaps. Maybe mostly red lava, with just a little bit of black lava. Test your stack of lava outside the tank to see if it will stand up on its own, with a very slight lean toward the back. If it does not, epoxy a few medium or small pieces of lava onto the back side, at the bottom, to keep the stack from teetering.

Watch out for burrowers. Some Africans will start to burrow into the gravel on one side of a stack of rocks, and the whole stack will fall over, trapping or killing that fish. Or, the stack will slowly drop into the depression, trapping the fish overnight. Put the lava rock almost all the way down into the gravel, but don't scrape it against the glass---it will scratch it.

One aquarium epoxy stick to use is AquaScape Aquarium Epoxy, by D-D Aquarium Solutions, and is medium dark, or battleship grey in color when cured. Silicon aquarium adhesive will not work. Stores that sell saltwater fish will have this, for $10 to $12. Or online at FosterandSmithAquatics.com, BigAlsOnline.com, and PetMountain.com all sell a grey epoxy stick that is the same, for $8 to $10. Watch out, they also sell a pink epoxy (kind of bright).

This epoxy will also work on glass to glass, plastic to glass, plastic to plastic, terra cotta flower pots to glass, plastic, and rocks. But, not for making fish tanks or refugiums of glass or acrylic. Can be sculpted before it cures, such as into crevices or holes.

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---Mark13
If I had a nickel for every purchase of tropical fish or supplies,
then I would have more money to purchase tropical fish or supplies.........

Now that is a funny looking solution. Hope it is working.

i had aggression issues between my zebra and elec. yellow. my zebra killed one of them. i had to get rid of my zebra and the community has been fine since. your solution looks fine for the time being. a few others mentioned adding more cichlids, which can be helpful in resolving aggression. if you do that though, make sure you have suitable filtration. good luck.

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--- 5 gallon beta,16 gallon tropical community, 29 gallon cichlid, 55 gallon reef.----