# About overcrowding and aggression.



## Mikelodeon (Aug 6, 2008)

I was reading an article where the author says overcrowding is a good way in order to stop aggression in a Cichlid Tank, she said an overcrowding tank will inhibit their territorial instincts.
It is not the first time I read this kind of thing, maybe some of you practice this overcrowding? does this work? I am just wondering if this applies to Yellow Labs and HOW MANY fish for gallon is overcrowding.

Thank you


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## George Walker (Nov 10, 2008)

I tried to pratice this as well, however, when they cannot establish territory the dominate african will chase relentlessly whomever he wants, who ever is the weekest in his eyes till the death. I saw it happen in my tank with a Cobalt Blue against a much larger Red Zebra. I went from 14 africans thinking that more was good, to five now knowing that less is better. It is only a 55 ga tank but I learned from that experience, and my Yellow Lab is still alive when he was chased early on in the over crowded condition by many other africans.I still maintain the cobalt blue,the auratus, the yellow lab, two orange blotch zebras and a dogtooth. They all get along fine now that they are not over crowded. Enjoy a peaceful tank of aggressive africans, it can be done

Thanks


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## joker4466 (Oct 10, 2008)

those are really aggressive fish.in my all male 100g when i sell one or get rid of a couple there seems to be more aggression.so i end up adding a few to the tank and the aggression seems to go way down


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## gatch (Nov 11, 2008)

newbie here so go easy (to the forum not to keeping malawis)
i have always found that overcrowding is good to keep aggression to a minimum, the reason you lose less fish is because the more dominant fish are less likely to pick on the same fish all the time, they have so many to choose from that they soon move on to another fish (within minutes) and the first bullied fish wasn't bullied long enough to cause any harm.


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## cindylou (Oct 22, 2008)

I keep reading this over and over..It seems like everyone has a different experience with the aggression..I have 8 cichlids in a 55g. and I see very little chasing for the most part they seem to get along..But they are not full grown yet so I really don't know what I should do..
2 yellow labs
2 acei
1 bumble bee
2 jewels
1 auratus :-? 
:fish: :fish: :fish:


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## cindylou (Oct 22, 2008)

I keep reading this over and over..It seems like everyone has a different experience with the aggression..I have 8 cichlids in a 55g. and I see very little chasing for the most part they seem to get along..But they are not full grown yet so I really don't know what I should do..
2 yellow labs
2 acei
1 bumble bee
2 jewels
1 auratus :-? 
:fish: :fish: :fish:


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## cichlidaholic (Dec 7, 2005)

It depends on your stocking choices and your tank size.

It's impossible to advise without knowing these two things...

Take cindylous set up for instance. These aren't pairing fish, they are harem breeders, so having two of a species is never a good idea. The bumble bee and auratus really need a larger tank than a 55G. Should the jewels be a pair and decide to breed, the tank will be total chaos. (They do pair off, and I wouldn't keep them with mbuna.)

So, ideally (and for best long term results/success), if I had cindylou's tank, I would remove the jewel, auratus and bumblebee from the tank. I would then increase the size of the Yellow lab and acei groups...If I had _really good filtration_ on the tank and decided to only keep those two species rather than go with 3 species, I would go with 8 of each, for a total of 16 adult fish. (I'd also add a pleco and 3-4 Synodontis) If I wanted a 3rd species of mbuna (or peacocks or small haps), I'd carefully choose another species and have 6 of each.

For breeding purposes in a 55G tank, I would not advise keeping more than 3 species.

If I wanted alot of different species in a 55G, I'd go with an all male tank, which would mean one of each species, removing ALL females, and no two males that looked similar to each other.


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## cindylou (Oct 22, 2008)

See that is where I get confused I have been told get rid of the auratus and bumble bee and they seem to be very peaceful right now...My pair of acei and pair of jewel seem to go after 1 of there own kind and seems to leave the others alone...I also have 1 pleco in there...I would love to have another tank (bigger) Financially right now is impossible..When you say get rid of fish what do you do with them..Say I wanted to put just the auratus and bumble bee together if that is possible..What would be the smallest tank they would work in? :-? I wish I would have found this forum and got more info on all this instead of just the lfs...Thanks...


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

cindylou said:


> See that is where I get confused I have been told get rid of the auratus and bumble bee and they seem to be very peaceful right now...My pair of acei and pair of jewel seem to go after 1 of there own kind and seems to leave the others alone...I also have 1 pleco in there...I would love to have another tank (bigger) Financially right now is impossible..When you say get rid of fish what do you do with them..Say I wanted to put just the auratus and bumble bee together if that is possible..What would be the smallest tank they would work in? :-? I wish I would have found this forum and got more info on all this instead of just the lfs...Thanks...


The pairs of acei and jewels go after each other; a) because acei are not pairing fish, and often fish chase their own species more than others; b) the jewels have not paired yet and c) it is possible that you have the same gender of these fish and if male, they will fight a great deal.

the key with the bumble bee and auratus is that they seem to be very peaceful... so far. Maybe you get lucky, they are females and they'll be fine. If they are males, odds are very heavily on them being aggressive once they mature.

There will always be exceptions to every generalization, and sometimes light stocking will work for certain mbuna, in certain mixes. There are species for which it will almost never work for, and they far outnumber those that it would. Acei and Labs are such species that you could get away with a lightly stocked tank, when you have males and females.

George has a tank with a number of fish, where the males aren't closely related. Previously he had a Red Zebra and Cobalt Zebra, and that there would be quite a bit of aggression is entirely predictable. Now he has mostly singles of fish that aren't closely related. That will work.

You can choose to build your tank any way you wish. To have the highest probability of success, you will want to avoid the typically more aggressive species, and try to either keep fish as singles, or in groups large enough to disperse the aggression. In more cases than not, rock dwelling mouthbrooders, are best kept "overstocked" to disperse aggression, when there will either be average + aggression species, or breeding related aggression.


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## FishAreFriends (Dec 23, 2004)

If you are going to overcrowd you need to have TOP NOTCH FILTRATION. This will be the key to have more fish per tank than you would normally be able to have.


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## cichlidaholic (Dec 7, 2005)

> Say I wanted to put just the auratus and bumble bee together if that is possible..What would be the smallest tank they would work in?


cindylou, you'd still need a larger tank, even just for those two fish. As Fogelhund said, males of those two species tend to be more aggressive than females, but I've had a female bumblebee that almost destroyed a 55G tank early in my cichlid keeping. And, trying to keep those two fish alone in any size tank would probably eventually result in one lone fish. Without anything to distract them from killing each other, one would probably be successful. 

When I say get rid of a fish, in general, I mean try to trade it in at the LFS.

We can get away with almost anything with these fish when they are young. Once they begin to reach sexual maturity, things tend to change considerably. These fish are very territorial, and you have to view your tank as "real estate", more or less. The upper portions of the tank don't matter to them, it's all about the floor space and cave structures you have to offer. An overly aggressive mbuna can claim half or more of a 55G tank as his own.

I have a tank set up right now that is _really, really_ overstocked...It's a 55G, and it has a group of 4 Ps. Msobos (adult), 5 Yellow labs (adult), and about 20-30 Cynotilapia white tops (varying from 1-5 inches) plus two rogue peacock males. The filtration on the tank is great, and the tank is fine. I overcrowded it because my female Msobos were killing each other off, so I just started throwing other fish in the tank. The deaths stopped immediately, but, so did the spawning. :roll:

Sometimes we trade one problem for another!


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