Strange Behavior

[hotwinter]

We have had a yellow male african cichlid for around 5 months and yesterday I introduced him to a female african. THey have been displaying some strange behavior; swimming around in cicles nose to tale and the male keeps shaking. His whole body shakes.

Now the female is no where near big enough for breeding, but this behavior is very similar to what our kribensis did just before they bread.

Can anyone shed any light? And does anyone know of a site where I can look up all the different types of cichlids there are? I tried google but it wasn't very much help to me.

[Woodsy]

Sounds like courting behavior, and it is generally a way for males to recruit females to the harem, even if they might seem a little premature (at least from what I've observed in other colony species, anyway). I doubt you'll find one site that will contain an up-to-date list of everyone in the cichlid family, but Mark might be able to point you in the right direction :)

[hotwinter]

Well he's seemed to have stopped the funny shaking, but he's still chasing her around the tank. But I'm a little confused...she has a belly on her. I really don't think she's big enough to have babies yet...do you think she's just fat?

[reflex0]

I think you need 1 male per 4-6 female ratio for him to settle down.

Otherwise that female will be harassed until dead.

[hotwinter]

Thanks I've seperated them since.

[cichlidboy]

what species of cichlid?
I agree with woody, from what you say, sounds like typical courting behaviour.
But, cichlids also do the whole vibrating thing to ward of enemies and intruders to their territory. A sudden flash of the fins and color usually wards off most similar sized intruders.
How big is the female?
It's not common for a female at two inches to breed.
even at one and a half they are able to produce eggs although I doubt a succefull spawn will take place untill she hits three or four inches depending on species.
If you're talking about labidochromis cearuleus (i think i spelled it correctly) they max out at three or four inches. So females would be ready at around one and a half.


TJ

[hotwinter]

It's actually a male, a male marble OB peacock. They started fighting severely and my yellow male peacock lost his lips, he's now in a tank with a couple of parrotts and silver shark.

[cichlidboy]

lost his lips?!
That's the first time ive ever heard of that!
treat the damaged fish with some melafix

[hotwinter]

What happened is they thought it would be fun to fight to the death, they lock lips and thrash each other around the tank, that's how my little guy "lost his lips".

They're all grown back now and he's doing great, not a bully anymore since there are two parrotts who are much larger then him, he's too wimpy to pick on them, or maybe just to smart lol.