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| Photo by Rusty Clark – hottnfunkyradio.com |
Most African Cichlids are what's called "maternal mouthbrooders." Mouthbrooders are highly advanced from an evolutionary standpoint. They've developed a technique for protecting their young along at the most vulnerable time in their development. Mouthbrooders brood their eggs within their mouths!
For many of the non-mouthbrooding cichlids, and that is most neotropical cichlids, more or less stable pairs are formed and maintained through pair-bonding behaviors. Such behaviors as jaw locking, gill flaring (frontal displays) and beating/circling (lateral displays) function permitting inspection and "testing" of potential mates. This behavior will continue, following the establishment of any pair bond, as a ritualistic recognition or greeting behavior reaffirming that bond.
There isn't any best or right setup and design for cichlids. You can find however designs which may be better suited to your cichlids and make them feel more at home. If you're interested in seeing natural behaviors from the fish you should try to design your aquascape to mirror the environment your fish would live in if it were wild.
Not every setup will work with every cichlid. One example is an exceptionally rocky African Mbuna setup will not make a South American or even an African hap very happy. Many individuals who keep fish think cichlids are difficult to take care of, but Cichlids are easy to maintain once you learn how to keep them healthy and stress-free. 90% of issues with cichlids start with stress, tank mates, pH levels, and feeding them the wrong food.
To acquire more information about the technicalities of keeping cichlids, read Cichlid Fish Secrets. It's very professionally written and very easy to read whatever experience level, which is loaded from start to finish with relevant, detailed, and simple reading information.
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