Urgent Aggressive Red Zebra Cichlid

I have two Red Zebra Cichlids and one is being aggressive towards the other. The aggressive fish is Fish A and the victim is Fish B. I had about 5 red zebras but three died. After the others died Fish B was really aggresive towards Fish A. It tore off the tail and most of Fish A's scales are missing. I isolated Fish B and starved it for about 5 days. When I reintroduced it back into the original tank, Fish A became aggressive towards Fish B. I will try to post a video if I can. Fish A is trying to get under Fish B. Is it possible that Fish A is trying to fertilize eggs?

 

Do you have enough hiding areas for the fish? Is the tank large enough to house the number and types of fish you have?

 

Well I have this very big coral cave formation looking thing that Fish A uses now to hide. Before Fish B used it when he was aggressive. I think I have a 45 gallon tank. I have 1 juvenile tropheus duboisi, 5 yellow labs, and 2 red zebras.

 

Well in salt water sometimes you have to change up the rock work to create new territories. Sometimes taping a small mirror to the outside of the tank works as well, it distracts the bully. I imagine you might have to looks for less aggressive fish types though.

 

Here it is:

 

Did you take a look at the video? To me it looks like Fish A is trying to fertilize,but I wouldn't know since I've never experienced it before. I don't know the gender of the fish either.

 

Well I am not familiar with the specific fish it looks more like a submissive position. Like "dang buddy I give, see I am quivering, leave me alone already" you seem the same type of posturing with clown fish.

Take a look at this link:

Tropical Fish for Freshwater Aquariums: Red Zebra Cichlid Malawian African Cichlids

Says the fish will torment other tank mates, yeah that does not sound good.

 

these are harem fish., keeping two will almost always lead to death of one.
you have three options:

1 - get more red zabras to calm the group
2 - remove one of the zebras from the tank
3 - Adding other mbunas will sometime help with aggression issues if they are either close in size and or coloration.

and you will definitely need multiple caves and structures to keep aggression at a minimum.

 

The fish going under is a submissive move in this case. You will need to follow ReefPlayground's recommendations in this case.

 

I love my zebra's. Unfortunately I have to have 6 of them in the tank to spread out aggression. Keeping two of one species in the mbuna family will always result in a dominate/submissive hierarchy.