"Koi-Lo"
"Big Dummy" wrote
SNIP!

Any other ideas on reducing this guys aggression would be welcome too.
==========================
I'm trying to picture the stress, fear and suffering going on in this
tank.
For the sake of compassion can't you at least remove the other fish to
another tank since they cannot escape on their own as they would in the
wild? Or remove the green terror to a tank of it's own? How can you
watch
such suffering and torture of this fish's victims? :-(

Give me a break! As opposed to the constant bliss and peace of nature I
suppose?

I gather from your nom-de plume you are more familiar with Koi and other
pond fish and perhaps aren't familiar with keeping fish such as cichlids,
but there is always at the least the potential of serious aggression going
on in Cichlid tanks (most Cichlid species anyway). Same with a lot of other
popular aquarium species: scat, puffers, clown knife, many catfish, etc.
etc. It's a fact of life.

I've been keeping cichlids for 20 years. In that time 95% of the time my
tanks have been peaceful, hardly "terrorized" any more than fish are
terrorized by being kept in a tank to begin with. With potentially
territorial species such as I'm dealing with now finding a good initial
balance is difficult, in this case I seem to have a particularly aggressive
specimen. Once you have the balance established there is usually no more
serious aggression unless something else changes it (like one of the fish
grows much faster than the others or a mated pair forms for example)

For that matter I've kept Green Terrors in Cichlid community tanks before
with no problems. One problem is the fish sold under this trade name
include at least two major regional subspecies or morphs and probably
several individual species. I'm guessing the one we have is an unusually
territorial example, or it could just be his individual personality.

Anyway, I'd appreciate helpful responses instead of hand-wringing or
sanctimony. For what it's worth, the fish that were killed were done in
when I was out of town, the injured have been removed, the rest are holding
their own currently and if they start to show signs of injury they will be
removed as well.



--

Koi-Lo.... frugal ponding since 1995...
Aquariums since 1952
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o





Well, I used to keep cichlids tanks too and I knew for sure to take
the fish out when they were in trouble. I'm not talking about chasing
around, I'm talking about when they intend to kill. I'm having the
Discus now, they are still part of cichlids family last time I
checked.

The problem is, in the wild, they can get away from the aggresive
fish. In the fish tank, they can not. They will be chased 24 hours a
day till death. That's the difference. The best way is to do some
research to see what can be the tankmates BEFORE just put them in for
a try. In that way, you can also know if the water is suitable for the
tankmates too. There are lots of web sites that will give you the
information about which fish are good tankmates for a give type. I'm
sure you can find them easily.

As for the mirror, I would not put it in the tank because most of the
mirror I know use some kind of heavy metals at the back. It may leach
out to your water. That's just IMO.