Mating characteristics of Malawi's????

Hey all,

I’m quite new to the world of fish keeping but really loving it. I have a big Malawi tank which I’m slowly but surely busy stocking. Only have about 12 fish in there now. Yesterday when adding more fish my biggest cichlid became very aggressive and started chasing all the others around. After about an hour it started to relax, but it kept swimming around 1 of the new fish I added. And every once in a while it goes close to it and starts vibrating (shaking)....(don’t know if this is normal.) now I can’t figure out if it’s some type of mating characteristic or if it’s just doing it to warn the other fish or what..

Any help will be appreciated!!

Regards

 

Hi Wikus

One or two Questions firstly is the big fish and the new one of the same species and if you know what type of cichlid it is

It can one of two things either a sign of aggression to establish his territory or that it could be that the other one is a female.

O and can you give us the tanks parameters and if possible some pics of your setup and fish

Hope it helps

 

I doubt that it is a sign of mating because the fish is to new for the tank if you said 2 or 3 days then maybe a sign of mating, I think it is a sign of aggression towards a rival male that is looking for a territory of his own. IF I were you I would watch the very closely because they can cause a lot of damage to each other and the tank.
Hope this help.

 

Tank dimesntions are 110 x 70 x 65.

So about 500L
Flow in tank is around 4500L/H
im strugling to get the pics on..will try more

 

If the fish is going onto its side and shaking then it is most definitely trying to entice the female to his nesting hole. Wtched the process many times. The Tropheops do their thing on a flat rock.