Hi everyone, I'm new QUESTIONS

[swipe]

Hi everybody I'm new to this board and kind of to cichlids

I have some questions hopefully you guys can answer:

my 2 firemouths are always paired together, they constantly stay with eachother and kind of do this wierd circling of eachother, what is this?
are they breeding? what is the difference between female and male. One of them nips at the fins of the other, but they seem to like eachother, how can I stop this and what is their problem?

I bought a bunch of lava rock from a lps from an established tank so I could cut through the cycling process, without knowing, there were two little crabs on the rocks. They are now in my tank, will they cause any problems? My pacu is obsessed with kicking one of the crabs asses and now he has about three legs left and I fell bad for him. What can I do to prevent this, they have 3 big lava rocks to hide under, but they are always trying to find ways to esacpe instead of protecting themselves.

thanks,
John

BTW: I'll post some pics of my setup, once I buy a new battery for my dig camera.

[Rex Karr]

Welcome to the board, I'll see if I can help.


It sounds like you may have a pair, and they are showing spawning activities. Cichlids are just aggressive fish. And they are always scuffleing. Maybe the male is ready to breed, but the female is not, so the male gets mad, and picks on her. It happens a lot. Thats why many cichlids have to be bred with a divider in their tank to separate them. Although thats usually only used for big, extremely aggressive fish.

The crabs could possibly attack the fish at night when they are resting. I've heard of it happening before. If you don't really want them, and they are getting picked on, I woudl suggest you take them back.

And about your pacu. You do know that he will reach 24" or more, and require a 400g+ aquarium right? Just want to make sure you were informed about this behemoth of a fish before you bought him.

Good luck,

Oh, and what size tank do you have? It will play a big part in whether your cichlids wil tolerate each other in the future.

[fredzebra]

Your crab that lost 3 legs probably wont live much longer. A crab can regenerate one leg or maybe even 2 after molting. obviously, if they lost their pinchers they would not feed and die. but if they lose too many legs they'll just die.