# female chasing male



## cichlidboy123 (May 8, 2012)

i have 2 female cichlids and one male. the females are a kenyi and a blue cobalt cichlid. my male is a red zebra. today i returned my extremely aggressive male kenyi and got the female. my female kenyi is slightly larger than my male red zebra. SHE chases HIM. i want to know why. i am pretty sure that the kenyi is a female because before i let her in the tank, i did the venting, and also she is blue. i would also want to know how the females choose there males. thanks


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## GaFishMan1181 (Dec 17, 2008)

Females can be aggressive too espeically if they are the largest fish in the tank. A few years back I had a full grown yellow lab female who wouldn't let me add any more labs into the tank without ripping them to shreds. I added in a group of cobalts and had those and the one female lab. Everything was fine until the male cobalt got to the same size as the lab and then the tables turned.

Alot has to do with size of the fish.

What size tank do you have? WIth only 3 fish its never really good.

Another example: I had a large pearlmutt who i bought along with a semi rare group of axelrodi. I but them in a 30g tank to quaratine them before they went into the main tank. Came home one day and the perlmutt had killed all but 2 of my axelrodi (who were smaller). After a few weeks I added the perlmutt to my main tank and my even larger fuelleborni ended up injuring the perlmutt so bad I had to take it out and never tried it back in.

These fish are aggressive thats why we work so hard at getting proper ratios if we are keeping harem setups. For me I switched to all male which was even more challenging to find compatible fish but i havent had an injury of any sorts in the last 9 months and my fish range in size from 3"-6".

After we find out what size tank you have we could advise on how to make your tank either a harem setup or an all male but with just 3 fish it will be hard. The more fish the better (depending on tank size). It allows the aggression to be spread out and not directed to one individual.


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## cichlidboy123 (May 8, 2012)

Thanks. BTW I have a 4ft long 55g tank


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## Rare (Mar 31, 2012)

Yes. It is true that the female will kill any males who are smaller than her. Females will never mate with weaklings. haha


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Huh, I have had females that did not kill smaller males.

A change I would make in this tank to improve things would be first to choose one Metriaclima and rehome the other two. Kenyi would go since IMO they are too aggressive to a 55G.

Then decide whether you want all-male or mixed gender. For all-male think in terms of 8 fish. For mixed gender choose 3 species from different genera and avoid high-aggression choices like kenyi. Stock 1m:4f.


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## Rare (Mar 31, 2012)

It's true based on my experience. My adult female esterae was the most dominant fish in the tank until I decided to sell her since she had killed 3 males in just a week. :/

It all happened in a 75 gallons tank.


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