Multis shell-dwellers aggression and not breeding!

[EmmaFish]

Fish drama: need advice!

I have two multi cichlids, who were a pair until I reintroduced their now-fully-grown male offspring. The males immediately began fighting over mom/wife; locking jaws and thrashing, aggressively chasing and the likes. I was worried they would kill each other so I moved the two sons back to their separate tank. The only problem was, amongst the fighting, the female seemed to prefer her biggest son over her original mate. She took his side several times. Now that only her and her original hubby are left in the tank, she has chased him all the way to the other side of the tank where he sits on the ground, defeated. I would move in the male she seems to prefer, except that he is her offspring and I don't want them to mate and weaken the genepool. Is it ok to have my female multi have fry with her son? Or should I wait and hope that her husband gets accepted again, if that will ever happen? I am not sure what to do with these troublesome fish!

Also-Is there a place I can get rid of two male multi cichlids, and is there a place where I can request female-only multis as well? 

Some questions: does the pH of the water affect the sex ratio of cichlid fry?

And is it ok to move feuding males into the same tank?

Aaannnd I heard somewhere that too many males in a shell dweller tank will stress the female out and she won't spawn-is this true? 

I need a multis expert!

Edited October 4, 2022 by EmmaFish

[TheSwissAquarist]

To sell : LFS and try Aquabid

Same to get some! 🙃

Have a nice day!

[tolstoy21]

Multis are very hard to sex, especially when young, so unless you are buying fish that are older, where the males are much bigger than the females, you'll likely be unable to request specific sexes.

Multis do spar, but I haven't seen them kill one another in my experience.

A few years back, I started with seven fish and wound up with too many to count. However, they do breed slowly. The colony will grow slowly at first, but once it hits critical mass, there will be enough breeding adults to make up for slow speed at which they spawn, and you'll soon have a lot of them.

When you colony breed multis, the fish will mate with their parents and siblings, etc.  This is fine. It would probably take some time before this had a negative impact on their genes. If you worry about this, just introduce some a few new fish from a new source every now and then. 

[EmmaFish]

Thank you so much! I was worried that the fish babies might have deformities or weaknesses if I interbred them. Does that mean that I can move them all to the same tank even if they are continuously sparring? I read somewhere that too many males to females makes the females nervous and that they won't spawn; is that true? Thank you so much for the excellent advice, I really appreciate it! 

[tolstoy21]

On 10/3/2022 at 9:19 PM, EmmaFish said:

Thank you so much! I was worried that the fish babies might have deformities or weaknesses if I interbred them. Does that mean that I can move them all to the same tank even if they are continuously sparring? I read somewhere that too many males to females makes the females nervous and that they won't spawn; is that true? Thank you so much for the excellent advice, I really appreciate it! 

Unfortunately, I'm not well-versed in multis enough to answer some of those questions. I can only say that in my own experience I had maybe 60+ multis at any given time in a 40 gallon tank. I had so many shells that you could barely see the bottom of the tank and this gave them plenty of hiding spots, shelter, etc. The fish did fine without noticeable aggression. I don't know my male-to-female ration was, but I suspect I had many more females than males.  I raised them for probably a little over 2 years, then wound up selling them off over time.