# Electric yellow lab aggressive



## Electricyellow3 (Nov 11, 2017)

I have an electric yellow lab which I assume to be male and a red zebra which I assume to be female. The lab is constantly chasing the red around and when they stop for a bit, the lab will do his shaking dance in front of the red. This is what makes me think it is a male. He has been chasing the red zebra to the point that it hides in the corner all the time in a vertical position. Should I take out the lab for a day or what? I know they shouldn't breed due to hybrids but I don't have another tank besides a 10g hospital tank. That wouldn't be very big to keep one in there full term. I'm trying to get a bigger tank to split them all up but funds are low at the moment. Will the red just give in and mate or what should I do?


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I would move the red zebra until you have a bigger tank.


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## Electricyellow3 (Nov 11, 2017)

DJRansome said:


> I would move the red zebra until you have a bigger tank.


I only have a 10g set up right now. I figured that would he too small for it.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Anything is better than nothing.


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## Cyphro (Mar 23, 2018)

He just wants to mate with her, she is not in any real danger.


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## Electricyellow3 (Nov 11, 2017)

Cyphro said:


> He just wants to mate with her, she is not in any real danger.


I've heard of them killing them when trying to mate. I'm just worried she is going to be too stressed and it get to her


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## Cyphro (Mar 23, 2018)

Electricyellow3 said:


> Cyphro said:
> 
> 
> > He just wants to mate with her, she is not in any real danger.
> ...


There is about -200 chance your yellow lab will kill her. Don't worry about agression unless you have serious fin or lip loss.


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## Cyphro (Mar 23, 2018)

Yellow labs are tough fish but one of the least mean ones even if they dominate the tank. Rusties are even more harmless. Red Top Zebras are often dominant in a tank but they are also seldom to kill anything. I don't think you'd pretty much ever need to do anything much to keep aggression down so long as the tank has some rock hiding spots for everyone. You should be able to keep as many males at you want.

There are some like demasoni that are quite mean, but in their case they are pretty small so other fish are often fine as long as it is not one of them versus 20 demasoni.

Most of them are somewhere in between, but personallly I never have had to remove a bunch of males to make a tank work. If you want to have a tank with absolutely zero aggression and posturing you can do that, but it is not really necessary, and the males are usually the attractive ones.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I've had females and sub dominant males, if there are too many males, starting lurking under the surface and being constantly chased. These fish IME easily become sick and can infect the tank. I've had success removing excess males or adding females to manage aggression.


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## Electricyellow3 (Nov 11, 2017)

Great advice guys! Thank you so much.


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## Cyphro (Mar 23, 2018)

That's how it is with haps, for every species it is different though. And if labs swim around in the top water then they are unhappy, that is not normal for them.

I had a dozen yellow labs at once and no problems at all. They are just not that aggressive of a species. The ones that are, like auratus, are usually tough enough so that there is not much chance of killing so long as there are enough territories. It helps to have multiple species in the tank though.


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## Electricyellow3 (Nov 11, 2017)

Cyphro said:


> That's how it is with haps, for every species it is different though. And if labs swim around in the top water then they are unhappy, that is not normal for them.
> 
> I had a dozen yellow labs at once and no problems at all. They are just not that aggressive of a species. The ones that are, like auratus, are usually tough enough so that there is not much chance of killing so long as there are enough territories. It helps to have multiple species in the tank though.


Well I've got quite a mixture and plan on splitting them up. Just want everyone happy lol and that seems hard to do.


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