Assimulation in a aggresive community

[eZion]

Last night for a second time, I tried to put in the two 2.5" salvinis into the 4ft tank, also together with them, I put in the 2" midas. But one of the salvinis got beaten so badly this morning that I have to quickly remove all of them.

How do you assimulate new fishes when you have 3 red terrors and 1 texas guarding over the waters so agressively? And also not to mention with a 5" jag on the prowl.

Is there a way to lower the rate of aggression? Should I take out all the RTs and Texas, wait till the new fishes stabilized, then put them back?

[lsz]

i will remove all hiding places
make the tank totally bare
take out the old guys inside, throw in the new ones
until they are feeding well, then will throw in the old ones.

this will be the best case for the new guys, but very often the old ones will just regain ground easily and start to whack the new guys soon. this part all depends on luck

in any case, new world cichlids are not meant to be mixed together....they very much will love to have their space .. unlike many from african rift lakes esp mbunas where their size and character allows for a colourful community.

for central americans, the only way is to supercrowd them...
and that will take a huge toll on filtration and water quality.

and if you start to crowd them since young, it is almost impossible for at least 1/2 of them to reach a good size.

many communities (mine included) have fish that had been introduced at adult size

[eZion]

So it seems like its either that I give your suggestion a shot or I'll just have to keep the new batch of fellas seperately.

I have a thought but don't know if it works. I can feed the new batch constantly to make them outgrow those in the old batch(feed only like once or twice a week) by a inch or two. I think then at least size will keep them safe. Do you think it will work?

[lsz]

will not work well..
getting them to grow in a community at the rate you desire is one question

and size is not really a big factor unless one is like at least 50% bigger
more extreme cases are common ...
cichlid tenacity can make them go a long way to get wat they want....or get rid of what they dont [:]