The most peaceful to most aggressive Mbuna in my mixed African Cichlid Tank
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- Опубликовано: 1 авг 2024
- Hi all! In this video I discuss my 6 different types of Mbuna in order of least aggressive to most aggressive.
The 2 main criteria I based aggression off were:
A) How territorial the fish is (i.e., defensiveness);
B) How the fish interacts with other fish (i.e., active aggression).
The order of least to most aggressive is:
1) Yellow Lab;
2) Yellow Tail Acei;
3) Red Zebra;
4) Red Top Hongi;
5) OB Zebra;
6) Bumblebee.
I hope you enjoy the video and find it to be helpful :) Let me know what you think in the comments down below!
If you are enjoying my content, I would absolutely love for you to subscribe to my channel!
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Im from Malawi and this video painted a huge smile on my face. Couldnt be prouder
That's awesome!!
Cichlids are eaten there right? The colourful ones too? You must have chuckled when we spend so much money to buy and keep them.. :D
i love your tanks Katy, I especially enjoyed your video on how to make a hill aqua scape w the plastic framework, it turned me away from having like the ship, or Sandcastle in my tank to a more natural vibe, Im in love w mabunas and how even a tiny ( one step above a fry ) can have so much attitude , and assertiveness to be completely fine with fish 10 times their size
Wow!! Another awesome video Kaity, I’m learning so much.
Thank you so much!!
Katie, I must say your delivery of information on so many levels 🥇I must say I really enjoy your videos, you speak softly with kindness that it's a true pleasure to watch and very informative 👍
Blessings 🙏
Wow, thank you so much Eyal 😊 That is a huge compliment and so lovely to hear
Thank you for the great content. I appreciate the recommendations. Lovely tank!
Thank you so much 😊🙏 I appreciate it!
very nice info!!
Love the fish !
Thanks Kaity, very informative video!
Thanks heaps :)
my bumblebee is great not particularly aggressive at all I find maingano,demasoni,auratus and hybrids to be most aggressive in my experience love th uploads Katie keep em coming
This video was so helpful! I’m doing my research right now to have my own cichlid aquarium and this is such a good video
That's really great to hear! Thank you Daphne 😊
Really good info mate.
👏👏👏 Kaity you have studied knowledge & advise on keeping the Mbuna species ... Thank you ... Some cichlid keepers suggest re-arranging the tank layout to reduce aggression in the tank or just having males only ... But your the first You Tuber say keep single species and it works well for you.
Thank you so much!! :)
Your tank is exquisite! 🥰
Thank you!!
Love the color ❤❤❤❤⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us
Thank you!!
Great looking tank and very good video ‼️
Thank you Joey! 😊
Fantastic Malawi aquarium! Thanks for your informations!
Thank you so much :)
Nice list. I have some of those fish in my 75g African chiclid tank
I love the red zebra. Absolutely stunning love his orange color i have one just like it, my absolute favorite mbuna love their color.
I agree! They are soooo awesome!
Nice mbuna Cichlids tank 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
Thank you! :)
Magnifique aquarium ! Aucun poisson ne semble avoir la moindre morsure dans les nageoires ou dans les flancs ! Il n'y a pas de bagarres incessantes. L'eau est super limpide ! Chapeau l'artiste !
Thank you so much :)
Your tank is beautiful Katy 👏. I want one!
Thank you so much! :)
Love you're tank and I'm not here to criticize you. Believe me. Have kept african chiclids for over 45 years, and i used to mix my africans too, and it worked for a while until it didn't, so i kept my mbuna in tank specific aquariums I do keep haps and peacocks together, and even in that situation, sometimes i run into problems. i have ten tanks, and as they say, it's a fluid situation. Well, happyfish keeping and good luck with all you do.
Thank you!! 😊
Nice
Love it
Thank you!!
Subscribed!!!
Thank you!!
Nice.
Thank you 😊
sweet tank
Thank you 😊🙌
instresting that you have mixed mbuna with peacocks and haps, usually a no go in the hobby, but i guess it worked out 🎉
I've often heard of OB peacocks and always just assumed that the OB was an abbreviation for a scientific name. Thanks for clearing that up!
That's what I used to think too!
FYI OB has two meanings, Orange blotched and Orange blossoms. also, the OB peacock is not a natural or wild strain it's a hybrid in captivity from the natural Labeotropheus Fuelleborni Blue male with the OB female strain cross with a Aulonocara species of unknown line, likely the Red peacock german develop strain. It was 1st bred in southern California in the late 70's earlier 80's.
to add to my above comment Orange blotched OB and Orange blossoms OB do not have the same markings IN volume. the blossom is very heavily nearly 50% OB marked and the OB. blotched is just a few to serval blotched marking.
Your tank is so beautiful.. I hope to be able to upgrade mines one day 🙏
Thank you so much :) I'm sure you will get to one day!
I breed the red zebras metriaclima Estherae. I find they are somewhat aggressive mostly between males, the females sometimes as well, but not to the point of bad injuries or deaths. The yellow lab is a species I’ve been wanting to try, in fact if I can , I will try and liquidate my red zebra population and move to the labs. The most aggressive mbuna I’ve kept is a tie between auratus and chipokae. Great information Katy thank you so much🙂👍
Thank you so much! The yellow labs are beautiful little fish! That's cool, I've never kept the auratus or chipokae. I'm hoping to get a scrapermouth mbuna as my next one if I can find one
Your tank looks great. I have a 75 gallon all male mbuna tank. I agree with the other person that said an auratus or bumblebee may not be mbuna that you want to start out with. They are very aggressive.
Thank you 😊 Yes they can be pretty nasty! I seem to have gotten lucky with mine
Just subscribed, I like your videos. I'm a fish guy too
Thank you so much!!
Nice bit of info, bumblebees can be pretty mean at times
Thank you :) Yes they sure can be!
Do u know if yellow lab will eat rummy nose? Ty
What would happen if you added a Jack Dempsey American Cichlid in that tank?
Have you tried Seachem Matrix for better clear water?
What are the other cichlids in that tank, please?
I don’t see crazy one I had in this tank 😂😂 he destroy all decorations lol
Good video , did you know that aceis only grow to around 12 centimetres in lake Malawi but up to 15 in the aquarium because they are well fed.
Wow, that's really cool! Incredible they grow bigger in the aquarium
Thank u so much for the info bec half of the RUclipsrs never giving u the details u need to know on size an how to mix them..PS do u have albino convicts
Thank you! No I don't have any 😊
My bumble bee became tank boss and the only fish that would antagonize him was a yellow lab..but boss(I named him boss after a while) killed a handfull starting at a young age starting with any other bumble bees. There will allways be pecking order..my "Boss" lived 8yrs and was over 2lbs but alot of the time my 2nd in command (red zebra) called most of the shots got in fights. You can see whos in charge usually to the third and maybe 4th as they will continue to push for more.. then back down. This is the nature of Mbuna imho.
Whoaaa that's crazy :O I really hope my guys live for that long!! That's one of the things that makes me sad about African Cichlids is how they don't live as long as some of the other bigger fish
Bumblebee = beefy death torpedo
Mine grew to a hefty 6 inches of docile loveliness in my mixed mbuna peacock tank.
Then he murdered half my tank in the course of 2 days before I realized it was him. I thought it was water issues because he was always so docile.
Nope. It was bumblebee. Murder torpedo would just casually have enough of somebody swimming around him, he would give it a nice mouth hug, shaky shaky, and dispatch the careless neighbor passing by.
It's so crazy how they can just turn like that!! I wish they would all just get along 😂
Hi, do you have a wave maker installed? Would that help with behavior?
I do! I definitely think it helps with aggression
Do you think a 75 gallon tank would be to small for a few Mbunas. Love all your videos. You have a beautiful tank.
Thank you so much Brian 😊 I think 75 gallons would be doable depending on the type of Mbuna. I would try to go with peaceful ones such as electric yellows, or Lake Tanganyikan shell dwellers
Hi! I bought some mbuna, juvinile, ciclids.
The are in quarantume at the moment, to grow them.out a bit before adding to other cichlids, slightly bigger.
3 small ones died already. I dimmed the light after seeing them not coming out a lot. Feed them and they do come out to eat. Not all food, but I water change to take out excess food. Twice a week. Thre was about 5 in at first. One died. Inbought another 5 and 2 died.
This all happened in the first 1st week and 2 days of purchase.
I'm new in the hobby and would like tomlearn to provide the best for all my fish.
Please help and suggest what it can be. I do not see any weakness in the fish but they 3 is dead. I'm now scared I will loose more.Rhinking to just add them to the main tank.where they might have a better chance.
There is only 3 rocks in the quarantine tank. Maybe fir small mbuna not enough to hide. Maybe I need to leave the light off completely for a few days and not just dim it. Not sure. Please help...
Hi Louie, there is a lot to unpack with this! There could be a variety of reasons why they are dying like disease, water parameters, or aggression. If it is a newly set up quarantine tank, the first thing that comes to my mind is that maybe the tank wasn't cycled enough to handle the fish. If you can message me on instagram (my instagram is kaitys_cichlids) and send me a photo and video of the fish I can try to help you figure out what's going on :)
Very nice tank, I’ve also got all male Mbunas (which I’m slowly transitioning away from to Peacocks) but my yellow lab was the most aggressive of all of them, so I had to rehome him. My bumblebee is the sweetest and doesn’t bother anyone. My red zebra, yellow tail acei and Ice blue zebra are getting along just fine.
Wow, so interesting!! They definitely have their own little personalities
What i notice is yellow labs are really agressive towards their own kind
Very informative video!!! Thanks . I have 40 breeder and I want to keep African chichlids. What types of chichlids do you suggest and how many each?
Thank you 😊 Do you mean a 40 gallon tank?
@@Kaityscichlids yes
Love the blue face yellow body male peacock
Yes, he is beautiful! I think he is a Mara rock Sulphur crested peacock/hap hybrid
Can i keep a yellow lab, venustus and dragon blood peacock together with South Americans like Severums?
It's generally not advisable mostly because African Cichlids tend to pick on South American fish and prefer water that is a much higher pH. It can depend though, I do have mine with some bristlenose plecos, and I've seen them be put with a blood parrot by Kaveman Aquatics
I got only 4 labs, I am scared to get that many fishes
how do you get your fish so colorful and bright
I give them a colour food called Absolute Colour as part of their diet which helps a lot! Plus keeping the water clean for them and feeding a mix of good quality food 😊
Just curious, as far as your peacocks are concerned, did you buy them as juveniles? Or did you purchase them as adults?
I purchased them all as juveniles
@@Kaityscichlids the reason I’m asking is because my experience with peacocks has been one of frustration. That is why I now exclusively keep mbuna. This entire thing about only the males color up, or the dominant male will stress out the subordinate males and affect their coloration. And just the fact that in many instances they take so long to mature and color up. But anyway, new to your channel and enjoying the content. Love your aquarium.
@@ARod-br2ui thank you so much! I'm glad you're enjoying it 😊 Yes, personally I prefer Mbuna and Haps over Peacocks. My Peacocks have only just started to look more colourful the past few months and they have taken forever to grow!
It makes me wonder how do they know what they look like when you said they tend to pick on others that look like them 🤔
I have wondered this too!! They do the same thing with breeding, they somehow know which fish resembles themselves the most
what do you feed them?
A mix of New Life Spectrum Thera A and Algae Max, Fluval Bug Bites, and Dymax Cichlid Premium mostly 😊 I also give them some Absolute Colour food too
Love your vids. Allso acai is pronounced A C eye
Thank you so much 😊 And thank you!! Now I finally know how to say it 🤣
Your scape looks like you were going for a reef tank at first lol
Close enough 🤣
Hello is it possible to feed cichled with chichen meat and liver only throughout the year
It's recommended for the Mbuna to have fibre in their diet, like algae, plant matter, or vegetables. Because of this I don't think they would fair well on chicken meat and liver. Other cichlids that can tolerate protein heavier diets might do better, but I would still always recommend feeding a whole diet that includes fibre
skip the meat proteins altogether, veggie proteins are a way to do it, use an insect protein only when conditioning a female for a couple of weeks IF you want to breed her.
I never had sucess in keep them. twice kept them. one time i gave up voluntarily and another instance summer got them. I am currently having some african cichlids along with south americans. It seems like some fish are plain evil rowdy's and also they are most good looking ones. I had two centerpiece african cichlid one dragon blood and one yellow zebro. I removed them both, after that, tank is nearly peaceful. Mostly because there aren't much left in the tank. those two rowdy guys killed atleast 5 other african cichlids. Will they get displined after few weeks or new tank boss would put them in their place? I have small lelupi, it can easily fit into a large venustus or even peacocks. So far the lelupi survived, and large fish simply ignore the smaller ones.
It is so hard to know with African Cichlids! They are very hit and miss. In general the more different they are in terms of colour the better they tend to treat each other I find, and the peacocks are the worst for it too in my opinion. I think you would only be able to know by trying it and monitoring them to see how they go
@@Kaityscichlids Jail time as worked. ;) Peacock and mbuna are back in the tank.
Can peaceful mbuna be kept in a 40 gallon?
A 40 breeder?
You could try ones like the electric yellows, but I would probably go with something more like shelldwellers for a tank that size :)
So you just put one of each fish? So you can't put multiple if each fish.
You got a few hybrids in there. That "Red Zebra" is mixed with a firefish.
Oh that's so interesting! I would never have known. He is really big now
@@Kaityscichlids Only the color is really the giveaway. It still retained it's Zebra bodyshape. Nice to hear that they're still growing.
Usually it is pronounce A C I, long A, C, then long I.
My yellow tail acei is so agressive that I need to put him in quarantine now. He's chasing my other peacocks all the time and I don't know why. I've tried bringing him to the other tank with relatively bigger fish and somehow in 1 days he's become the boss and start chasing the other.
Oh no!! It's a shame when they have to act up like that. My yellow tail acei has always been so peaceful
@@Kaityscichlids yeah I guess every fish have their own personality. I'll try to introduce him again after a week and watch him carefully. Thanks for the response!
@@taufiqyoutube8488 Have you got the Acei on his own? I'm only asking as they tend to school if you have a few together and usually once they are doing that, they ignore pretty much everything around them and don't bother anyone else. As far as I know, they are one of the only type on mbuna that like to hang out in big schools together
I have a Male auratus. he is bigger than 4 inches.Bumblebee ciclids are aggressive but Auratus ciclids are the most aggressive.he easily kill my bumblebee ciclid within 3 days
Funny thing that your crabro seems to be see aggresive, in my tank (i've got 5 of them (crabro), but got 50+ mbuna in total or so), they seem not that aggresive at all. Maybe yours was more on the aggresive side because you only kept 2, that's not very common to do actually. You'll experience with more mbuna in a tank (with the proper amount of rocks etc) that there's actually less aggression.
I believe it was because they were both males
@@Kaityscichlids That makes sense :)
Is that a freshwater clam I saw?
Yes, that's right! I had about 6 of them, but I only have two left now
@@Kaityscichlids I was thinking about getting some for this aquascape I've been thinking about. The only thing I read about them said they're difficult because you don't know, right away, if they're dead. Maybe make a video about them.
I have to correct you , the ob zebra isn't a hybrid because it naturally occurs in the wild it's just a rare morth of the zebra , on the other hand Marmelade cat or ob peacocks are hybrids between aulonocara and mbuna...;)
Ahh I see! Thank you for the info :)
Mbunas are torture fish… they eventually grow and kill the weaker ones 😏. Good that you have semi aggressive ones. I have auratus, keyni, johanni, demasoni.. these dont last togethet for longer. They killed their own conspesifics like mpanga, jelo reef, demasoni, auratus, yellow tail acei etc.
Yep, they can be pretty brutal!
How big is your aquarium?
125 gallons
@@Shashankmk I have a 150 and aside from their usual little skirmishes, mine seem to be thriving. I have an all mbuna tank with the exception of one tropheus.
@@ARod-br2ui i have four tropheus and rest are mbuna… my mbunas have grown bigger.. eventually they bully and pick thr one which is smaller and weaker
i believe the african cichlids develop different personality regardless of species
Very true
Cam aglomerat acvariul 😳
Could you please list you're mbuna's in the comments?
Off the top of my head I've got an OB Zebra, a red zebra, red top hongi, bumblebee, electric yellow, and yellow tail acei in this video 😊
the pronunciations 😭😂
😂😂😂
My bumblebee killed all my other African cichlids.
Oh no!! 😭 That sucks!
my ob not a pea cock but a MBuna does not have big eye nor peacock shape pretty dam aggressive it it little size
FYI your Number four is a male and your # 5 ob zebra is not a hybrid, its the marmalade ob zebra that's what a Male ob zebra is called it's natural in the wild BUT very rare to find the normal appearing male is not ob only the female of the ob strain is the normal male in the wild is vertical stripe and blue color to a dull brown nearly. What is a hybrid is all of the ob peacocks. also, the OB male zebra does not know what color he is and has a "go "at your ob peacocks just because he chooses to. FYI. OB has two meanings, Orange blotched and Orange blossoms do not have the same markings in volume. the blossom is very heavy ob marked and the o.blotched is just a few to serval blotched also, the OB PEACOCK is not a natural OR wild strain it's a hybrid in captivity from the natural Labeotropheus Fuelleborni Blue male with the OB female strain cross with an Aulonocara species of unknown line, likely the Red peacock german developed strain. It OB peacock was 1st bred in southern California in the late 70's earlier 80s. I just want to point out a few facts about info on red zebra, (RZ) the typical example in the lake the males are all blue/on the darker side compared to the cobalt zebra. At the time in the 70s, the male was dirt cheap and the females demand nearly 90/95% of the pair price. The stores would sell pairs only cause the males were not attractive to the buyers. Often a cichlid keeper would choose to keep a male cobalt zebra male to display instead of the darker drab male RZ.
In the '1970s a male in the red form was caught in the wild (perhaps the 1st)and shipped from collector S.M.Grant to his friend William Gauthier in Santa Monica.Ca, he spent two years breeding in order to produce the RedMALE -to-red strain before it was sold to the public at "The Aquarium store". in just two years it became hard to find the male RZ in the blue normal color.
Following that info red females that come directly off the lake are a much deeper orange color leaning closer in color to red also at the time often referred to as a cherry red color.
RED /Cherry than any RZ you will EVER see in captivity likely again till a wild import of the part of the lake of the cherry red.
The newest light bulbs can trick you to see a deep red/orange but those lights weren't around in the '70s.
Next, I will point out that most of the RZ I find on the market are of the Albino RZ strain (ARZ) form. It's VERY rare for me to find the normal-eyed ones, cause the ARZ tends to display a more attractive orange hue. I've searched from Toronto. Canada to southern California looking for the non-albino strain. I will assume the natural strain is lost in captivity. most if not all of the "RZ "I see tend to have one or two markers that stick out to me some are specked on the scales while some appear see-through to some extent, almost always you can see the vertebrate line and the organs.
In the 70s and 80s, this was not visible to see on a natural normal RZnot even in the red form of the males. At some time the albino strain came along and added in what I see now, I feel it was around the time the Taiwan Reef strain can out. In another storyline, I could talk about the Cherry Red OB zebras "CROBZ", very different from old ob zebras seen on market.
This CROBZ I have seen only 4 imported from S.M.Grant to W. Gauthier around 1972 /73 2 were D.O.A and the other two died of bloat a month after import and never bred. One of AD Konig's books has a picture of the CROBZ some were in it.
Wow! You have an amazing depth of knowledge Andy. Thank you so much for sharing :)
your so beautiful
A single fish, i mean male without female, is non territorial and shows another caracter !?! 😬😮👍
This is a bad SCAPE for mbunas
How so?
@davide de santis Your bad for the youtube community
Good choice if you want a mellow species: Iodotropheus sprengerae. Known to be well behaved, but as a consequence, don't keep it with bad tempered species or you'll lose it.
At the other end of the spectrum ... those looking for a challenge, look no further than the Petrotilapia species. These are strongly territorial, given to hyperdominance in the aquarium, and matters are exacerbated by their large size. 8 inches isn't unusual for a Petrotilapia, and they have powerfully muscular bodies as well. They're capable of inflicting horrific damage upon opponents, and you need to plan the aquarium VERY carefully for these fish, in order to avoid brutal internecine warfare breaking out. These NEED a very large aquarium, and diligent care when planning the decor - in part to give their companions escape options when the Petrotilapias decide to go DefCon 1.
Top of the aggression list is the infamous Melanochromis chipokae. A hardcore aquarium terrorist with a well deserved lurid reputation for vicious behaviour. Needs EXTREME care if you mix it even with other aggressive species, though the Petrotilapias will hold their own against it. Needs a huge amount of advance planning before you introduce it to an aquarium, and be prepared to intervene swiftly if it starts killing its tank mates. A species for the dedicated and very experienced, MUCH nastier than auratus, a statement you don't see very often!