cichlid rookie seeking advice

[Lamby]

Hi all

just started keeping malawis a couple of month ago.

started with electric blues, elec yellows and a couple of aceis.

thinking about adding some lombardis.  is that a bad idea?  are they too aggressive?

Thanks

Lamby

[Paul]

lombardi are one of the most territorial of all malawi cichlids. you might get lucky but more likely a male will terrorise the tank to some extent. They are from the Mbuna group of Malawi cichlids. Mbuna get most of their food from scraping algae from rocks in the lake. As good algae producing rock surfaces can be in short supply, they have evolved to protect their patch with great ferocity.  Mbuna are best kept in a tank with alot of other mbuna.

There are lots of other fish you can keep with blues and yellows etc. why not try a peacock or a lithobate?

[wrk21]

yep.

[Lamby]

tanks for the advice

[Sam25]

Oks,,,lombardies are known to be very agressive but you can come across the odd nice one...

I had a pair of them a year or so back and the male was very agressive at times, but only my dominant male zebra died from what i think was from having a fight with the male lombardi...and i had at the time, a trio of zebras, e'blues, some e'yellows and a pair of hongi's and lets not forget the lombardis all breeding in a 2 foot tank.

it might just be luck, but thought id throw my 2cents in... :D

[Hypancistrus Zebra]

[quote:a7db48028c="Sam25"]I had a pair of them a year or so back and the male was very agressive at times, but only my dominant male zebra died from what i think was from having a fight with the male lombardi...and i had at the time, a trio of zebras, e'blues, some e'yellows and a pair of hongi's and lets not forget the lombardis all breeding in a 2 foot tank.[/quote:a7db48028c]

Thats a lot of fish all breeding in a two foot.

I have a female lombardi who is a Bi#ch of a fish and has a go at all my big colony of yellows, all of who are bigger than her (male is 3x the size) but the other female lombardi in the tank is nice and peacefull.

All I can say is they are weird fish.

my 2 cents, Wilson.

[fishtraderlau]

It depends on a lot of things mate....mainly though how big your tank is and how many fish in there.

I've not had a problem keeping lombardoi before with electric yellows, hongi, elongatus, etc. but, that's been in a nice 4ft tank and a general good cover and enough room and rocks for all to have at least one. Crowding of fish is also the key to reducing aggression, 3 lombardoi and 2 yellows, yellows will be smashed, but in a good tank with say, 5 lombardoi, 8 yellows, 8 blues....no problemo my friend.

If it's a smaller tank..then yeah, keep lombardoi to a species tank.

just like any of the zebras as well. Maylandia and Metriaclima are aggresive sorts of fish that need either crowding or lots of room to not cause trouble, i've even got aurora in a number of my tanks and sticking to those points is the key to keeping happy fish.

Andrew.

[Paul]

I've found in a tank with yellows, blues, peacocks, lombardoi and red zebs the main fighting will be between the dominant zeb and the dominate lombardoi. however I then introduced a trio of red empress and when the empress male decided to breed, he dug a huge hole and piled up a huge mountain of gravel and had every fish in the tank rounded up in the far corner. he was alot bigger than all of the other fish.

this shows two things:

1. a fish when breeding can be alot nastier than when he isn't breeding.

2. there are exceptions to every rule, in that out of 100 fish from a generally peaceful species there will always be a few real nasty ones and visa versa for fish reknowned for aggression.