Pet Forum / Aquaria / Cichlids / September 2005

I also believe these fish are able to sense opportunities to 'jump up the
ranks' as well as recognize who's boss.

Once, I temporarily removed my most dominant demasoni (which at the time was
the #2 dominant cichlid of close to 30 in the tank), and within 20min a beta
male demasoni sensed the vacancy and displayed increased aggressive behavior
(something I never saw this particular fish do, since he spent most of his
time avoiding the larger fish). He instantly reverted to previous behavior
once I returned the dominant demasoni back in the tank a few hours later.

The obvious king in my tank is a male red zebra. It seems all the fish in
the tank know it. He rarely shows aggression and his mere presence
intimidates the others. When he does go into action it's almost always to
break up fights he happens to witness, particularly among the other two red
zebra males who are always brewing to fight each other. But the moment they
face off, the king chases them off to opposite ends of the tanks and seems
to make an effort to ensure he's always between them. They give him wide
berth, even though one of them is bigger than he is. My interpretation of
this behavior is he's preventing the sub-dominants from battling because the
winner could gain confidence and probably become a threat to him. I'm
probably totally wrong, but that's what it looks like.

kay-bee