Female aggression in A.latisfasciata

[MisanthropeKitty]

I have 9 female and 4 male Astatotilapia latisfasciata in a 55g tank with some mbuna. Lately my females have become extremely aggressive towards each other and even beating up on my males. It's not all of the females just maybe 3-4 of them that fight constantly with each other, full on lip-locking, charging, and whatever you call it when they push out the bottom of their throats and spin around each other. The males hardly ever fight and when they do they mostly just spinning and flashing at each other. Is this normal for this species?

[MisanthropeKitty]

bump- no one has any insight on this?

[StructureGuy]

I had one male and three females in my 180 gallon tank. The male was fairly well behaved. There was a lot of female chasing female but never any fin nipping at all. I never saw any of them even square off much less actually lip-lock. But what happens to 4 cichlids (of one species) in a 180 gallon tank doesn't always reflect what might happen to 13 cichlids in a 55 gallon tank.

Sorry, I'm not much help here.

Kevin

[MisanthropeKitty]

do you think they are just establishing ranks? like who is the baddest b****? they havent been fin nipping, everyone has full tails just a lot of chasing

[nascar2]

If they are new to the tank I would say some of it would be working out the female pecking order. I have seen this before in some mbuna.