Allie

They are hiding b/c there is only 3 of them. Make sure you add at least groups of 3 when adding new fish to your tank.
Hongi do well with red zebra OR cobalt zebra, Not yellow labs as they are both labdiochromis species. Oh and not another striped fish.
Rusty cichlids are another one: http://cichlidforum.com/profiles/species.php?id=707
A peacock species would be nice too.
http://cichlidforum.com/profiles/results.php?genus=17

laurie.os

Thanks Allie. I bought a a clown pleco today and he's really telling them who's boss. He's after retreating under the stones where the female ususlly hides. She wasn't too impressed at first and gave him one or two nudges but he stuck it out and now she's after geting really brave and is now swimming in open water alot more. The only thing I'm worried about is that there isn't much algae in our tank so I threw in a algae wafer and the cichlids (after throughly sussing it out) devoured it!!!!
I'm just worried about his feeding.

When we bought the cichlids, we asked for 2 females and a male. I think (having been watching them all day) that there is actually 2 males. One is really bright blue with black stripes with green/yellow fins and the other 2 are more of a yellowy/purple with black stripes with yellow/orange fins. When the blue guy is out, the other male retreats to his cave and vice versa. The blue guy is chasing the female alot. They don't 'fight' with one another, just chase the female (well one does while the other hides) and the guy that hides also chases her the odd time.

Whatta you guys think