Mbuna are a type of fish that come from Lake Malawi and live among the rock in there home lake. Mbuna are also highly territorial fish. Because mbuna are so territorial, they will engage in aggressive behavior towards other fish in there aquarium.
If you put mbuna in an aquarium without a plan, they will all fight with each other continuous. In order to avoid fighting between your mbuna fish, you need to understand the importance of visual cue that mbuna use to recognize their rivals. Mbuna will use the color patterns of other fish to recognize their rivals.
How to Prevent Mbuna Fighting in Your Tank
Mbuna will recognize another fish as their rival if their color pattern are similar to their own. To avoid aggression among mbuna, use mbuna species with contrasting color. For instanse, yellow mbuna and rust colored mbuna will generaly get along in an aquarium.
Another way to manage aggression among mbuna fish is to use overstocking. If you have a small number of mbuna in your tank, the dominant male will focus all of his aggression on one weak fish species. However, if you overstock your tank with many mbuna fish, the dominant male will have to spread his attention to many different fish species throughout the tank.
Therefore, he will chase many fish instead of one fish. Since overstocking increase the biological load in the aquarium’s water, you will need to use a very strong filtration system for the tank. Furthermore, due to the fact that high levels of fish waste will be in the tank, you will need to perform regular water change in the aquarium to ensure that the water remain healthy for all of the mbuna fish in the tank.
Another important factor to consider for the health of the mbuna fish is the social ratio of mbuna fish in your tank. Many people makes the mistake of purchasing only a few mbuna fish. Mbuna do best in a specific ratio of males to females.
One dominant male mbuna and several female mbuna makes up an appropriate ratio for mbuna fish. If you have only one female mbuna, the male will harass the female all the time. Furthermore, female mbuna likes to hide because they are mouth brooder and have fry in their mouths.
Another important factor in maintaining an aggressive mbuna tank is the type of rockwork in the aquarium. Provide the mbuna fish with a complex maze of cave and crevices made out of rocks instead of open spaces within the aquarium. These caves and crevices will break the line of sight between the fish.
If mbuna cannot see their rivals, they will not fight with each other. Provide more hiding spot in the aquarium than the number of mbuna fish that you have in your aquarium. When the subordinate mbuna fish can hide in the cave, they becomes invisible to the dominant mbuna fish.
Avoid mixing mbuna fish with other type of fish in the aquarium, such as Peacocks or Haps. These fish also come from the same lake where mbuna are native to. However, their temperament and swimming habits is different.
For instanse, Peacocks fish swim in the open water of the lake but mbuna live on the rock. If you place Peacocks fish in the same aquarium as mbuna fish, the mbuna will bully the other fish species. Furthermore, the dietary need for mbuna and other fish such as Peacocks also differ.
Mbuna require spirulina-based food to avoid a condition known as Malawi Bloat. On the other hand, Peacocks requires more protein in there diets. Therefore, it is best for mbuna to have their own dedicated community of fish that all have the same dietary and temperament requirements as mbuna fish.
