75 Gallon Tank - Firemouth Cichlid Aggression

This is my female firemouth cichlid, and she's usually one of the most peaceful fish in the tank considering she's a cichlid. But, it looks like she's going to be laying eggs once again! As seen in my other videos, the firemouth and the male Blood Parrot Cichlid have become a pair...very weird i know. So just like last time, for the next few days she's going to be really aggressive towards the other fish, except for the parrot cichlid. Its nothing serious though, she just chases the other fish out of the open area in the center of the tank, so she will most likely lay her eggs somewhere in that area. Once she lays her eggs, she gets VERY protective of the eggs...but last time she laid eggs, the parrot cichlid stayed very close to the firemouth, but didnt help her protect the eggs...so the next morning, the eggs were all gone and im thinking that during the night the pleco or the crayfish may have gotten to the eggs. But here we go again, and maybe this time they'll have some babies.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• 75
• gallon
• tank
• silver
• dollar
• tetras
• blood
• parrot
• cichlid
• firemouth
• cichlids
• snakeskin
• gourami
• giant
• danios
• serpae
• bloodfin
• blue
• crayfish
• bamboo
• shrimp
• procambrius
• alleni
• Marineland
• Emperor
• 400

[Jason99942]

Stop encouraging cross breeding.

You end up with mutts, that eventually over time lose the genetic advantage of pure strains.

Many people are doing this and selling the fish back to the pet stores, leading to confusion over what fish this is.

The Blood Parrot is another ridiculous cross breed [Midas cichlid and Read Head cichlid], that lead to the deformities you see here.

There is nothing natural at all about what you're doing, these fish would never even meet in the wild.

[BingX14]

@Jason99942 well someone needs to chill out. I didn't put them together with the purpose of them breeding, i didn't even have the slightest thought that it would happen. But, since yes parrots are unnatural hybrids, the male parrot was infertile and could not fertilize the fire mouth's eggs. I'm not sure if you checked the date but this video was almost exactly 2 years ago. I do not agree with hybrid species and i certainly do not breed them.

[blackjaxin]

sick ass tank bro

[BingX14]

@blackjaxin haha thanks man

[Cbiskuit]

Awesome vid and set up buddy. Was wondering if any of you guys would have a butchers at my firemouths and try to identify male and female. I have 3. There no bother to anything else in the tank. Just themselves they chase each other, not fin nipping more of a territory/pecking order. Cheers

[BingX14]

@slereosh as long as you introduce a firemouth too big to be eaten by the oscars, you should be golden and everything should work. So id try to find or special order an adult FM or close to adult size OR set up a secondary grow out tank for the firemouth. sorry for the long responses! lol let me know what you think

[BingX14]

@slereosh youd have to somehow find a firemouth that is very close to adult size or else the juvenile firemouth you add with the oscars will be constantly hiding and be chased and or eaten lol. You could set up a grow out tank for the firemouth however. FMs and oscars make great tankmates when they are both at adult size. But if you have an 8" oscar and you put a firemouth under 3 inches it will most likely die from stress or be eaten.

[BingX14]

its very stressed out in the little breeder and chances are that you wont be able to get it to eat while its in there either if its so stressed, but the other problem is if you let it go with oscars of that size they will eat the FM in no time. its easier when you buy the oscar and FM at the same time when they are both very young, so the oscar grows up with it and has less of a tendancy to want to eat it. sadly oscars of that size already will look upon pretty much all small fish as food

[slereosh]

@BingX14 Ok thanks, haha i just bought a firemouth. But my oscars are around 6-8" Long, and my newly bought firemouth is only like a 1 1/2" juvenile. I have it in a little breeder that goes in the tank to protect it from the oscars, but i do not have any other tanks. What should i do? Im not willing to put it with the oscars until its at least twice its size. And it also acts wierd in the breeder, it sits in th corner, always moving his fins except for its tail fin, and it doesnt swim anywhere.?

[BingX14]

@slereosh firemouths in my opinion make fantastic tankmates for oscars. Firemouths arent over aggressive but they will stand up for themselves. remember, oscars arent aggressive fish...they are only aggressive feeders. they are like big teddy bears of the cichlid world. Most people think they are super aggressive but they arent, they are just highly predatory. if they cant eat it, they usually dont give it a problem. So yes any of those options would work but Firemouths are a great choice!