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One or two Cichlid keepers on the board may well have exeprienced the despair of having certain species hide constantly from view. This is particularly a problem with some highly strung Tanganyikan Cichlids, though is not unique to these by any stretch of the imagination.

Well, two magazine articles in my possession have a possible answer.

One of my infamous 1970s' back numbers of TFH starts the ball rolling here - with an article in the January 1978 issue (page 38) called Keep 'Em HIGH. Written by Marshall Ostrow, then editor of the magazine, it describes how he acquired some lavender Pseudotropheus eduardi (the name has probably changed since that time), and kept them in an aquarium atop a 17-inch table. They promptly went into hiding, and although they continued to feed, the only way that the author could watch his fishes was by pretending to be asleep nine feet away from the aquarium. Even then, seeing his fishes was more a matter of luck than judgement.

Then, Ostrow moved house. And, during this process, asked a friend to look after his P. eduardi. When he came to collect them, he was amazed to be told that the same fish were boldly swimming about the aquarium! The reason, it transpired, was that their temporary home was on a high stand, at least three feet off the floor. Ostrow then decided to conduct an experiment, placing half of the fishes in an aquarium close to the floor, and half in an aquarium at altitude, so to speak. The fishes in the 'high' aquarium were bold and inquisitive, while the ones near the floor were shy in the extreme. When he swapped the fishes around, the previously shy ones from the low-level aquarium became bold when moved to the high-level aquarium, and the reverse behaviour was exhibited by the fishes moved from the high-level aquarium to the low-level aquarium.

As a follow up to this, Juan Miguel Artigas Azas presented an article in Today's Fishkeeper (March 2004 edition, pp 34-36) covering the wild habitat and behaviour in the wild of a Central American Cichlid, Paraneetroplus bulleri from Mexico. In this article, he says:

Don't forget the natural shyness of this fish, which must be the first obstacle to surpass in order to keep them happy and lead them to breed, showing us the best of their colouration and behaviour. There are a number of ways to overcome this shyness: dither fish are very useful for this end, and Poeciliids and Athreinids should do a fine job. Another way is to keep the fish in a high level tank. Death comes from above in their natural habitat and the fish feel much more at ease when they don't feel they are constantly watched from above."

Note that in this latter case, Paraneetroplus bulleri lives in shallow fast-flowing streams, where their principal predators are likely to be birds such as Kingfishers and small members of the Heron Family. Oddly enough, these fishes also live in a biotope that possesses several of the characters of the Rift Lakes - rock-strewn gravel beds with intermittent large boulders, an almost complete absence of higher plants, and moderately hard, alkaline water. The difference here is that the water is fast-flowing: consequently Paraneetroplus bulleri needs particular attention to water conditions, and a high-turnover filtration system is a must for this species, as it lives in waters that are oxygenated to saturation by upstream rapids. However, it might be worth noting whether the more easily spooked Rift Lake Cichlids frequent the shallows, and are therefore likely to attract bird predation in the wild. Such species would be expected to behave like Paraneetroplus bulleri as cited above, and even deeper water fishes such as Cyphotilapia frontosa (long noted as a panicky fish) may exhibit a similar preference for an aquarium kept high above the floor if their principal predation danger in the wild arrives as an attack from above.

Incidentally, Paraneetroplus bulleri has an underslung mouth, resembling the Labeotropheus Cichlids of Lake Malawi, and has similar feeding habits, being an opportunist feeder on algae and aufwuchs. Prospective keepers of this enigmatic species should therefore arrange for it to live in an aquarium furnished in a similar manner as for Labeotropheus, preferably with a good coating of algae upon the rocks for it to graze upon, and with regular additions of small live foods to the diet such as Daphnia and Bloodworm. And, above all, keep it high!





[span class="edited"][Edited by Calilasseia 2004-06-29 08:35][/span]

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Interesting! Do yout think that this is a learned behavior exhibited by only wild caught cichlids, or more instinctual and the behavior is exhibited by even the tank raised cichlids?

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Very informative article, thank you for sharing. I just experienced this shyness with a new cichlid and hadn't considered the concept of predators coming in from above the fish.

My new little fellow took (what I considered to be) an unusually long time to get over his shyness, but it makes sense now. I have the quarantine tank on the floor. Duh.

That is an interesting idea. I've always heard the best remedies for shy fish are small, schooling/shoaling fish and/or floating plants. The presence of smaller fish swimming around openly will let the shy fish know there is no predators around.

Jason

Matty, I suspect it depends how long the fishes have been in that habitat. The Rift Lakes are recent arrivals in terms of geological time, and so the behaviour in the case of Rift Lake Cichlids may not have become as instinctually 'fixed' as in the case of some South or Central Americans that have been in the same waters for many millions of years. It's possible that some 'easily spooked' Rift Lake species may, over time and generations of being tank bred, 'unlearn' their shyness of things from above.

In the case of something like Paraneetroplus bulleri, though, you'll probably have several million years' worth of evolution to undo, which you won't do overnight

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Good point

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients