Geophagus... yes or no

I'm still trying to decide if I want to go with a minimum group of "earth eaters" in the tank I'm setting up... it'll be pretty much south American... it's going to have a few schools of Tetra's, a school of Cory's. & pretty sure an electric blue Acara... not going to do "traditional" live plants ( will have house plants rooted in the tank, a couple silk plants, drift wood, a few Maramo algae balls, & some red root floaters... but nothing a Geophagus would destroy...... the tank is a 55 gallon... I've been looking at a group of 3 Red Head Tapajo's... not sure how they'll get along with the Cory's & with 3 of them, if I'm going to have to rake the substrate daily ( I do have an under gravel filter in this tank ) this is what I'm using for substrate... I've got it in 2 tanks now & I like it so far...



this is a mature... I'd be looking at like 3 juveniles... pretty much all the fish will be small, with exception of the cory's that are over an inch right now...

​

When dealing with South American cichlids, it's preferable to only have one species of bottom dwelling cichlid per tank, unless it's a huge tank.

of course everything I've found on line says they are no problem with Cory's... they'll just move away from the Geo's , & the Geo's will leave them alone???

right now, I have a resin stump / cave of medium size in the tank... all 6 Cory's have been going in there at "lights out" I was kind of surprised they all would use the same cave... btw… water is much clearer now, so will be starting to aquascape

I think with gravel as your substrate id give the geo's a miss this time around. Being earth eaters they like to shift sand and pass it through their gills when hunting for food. Wont be able to do that with gravel

Have you considered a Biotodoma species rather than Geophagus? As you say your tank is just about the minimum for the Geos but it would be a great home for a shoal of 6 or more Cupid type Cichlids.

This is Biotodoma Wavrini in the wild, but I've seen these in a display tank before and really really stunning in the flesh.


This is the species they get their name from Biotodoma Cupido


A group of 6 or these with one Electric Blue Acara would possibly be a good mix.

With any of the fish mentioned above you could do to rethink your substrate - that gravel is not suitable for these fish, it poses a really big risk to them. You need to have them on a very fine sand as they push it through their gills, anything larger will get stuck between the gills and cause damage, potentially leading to wounds and infections. If you have not really set up the tank yet please consider changing the substrate or go for different fish - its quite a simple change really and is going to make your life with these fish so much easier.

Wills

AquaBarb said:

I think with gravel as your substrate id give the geo's a miss this time around. Being earth eaters they like to shift sand and pass it through their gills when hunting for food. Wont be able to do that with gravel

Click to expand...

Agree, and this also eliminates Corydoras.

Well I would personally call this sand… anyone care to give me an exact definition???

This is the most “sandlike” substrate I have ever used… the Cory’s seem to like it…

These were the best under gravel filter plates available, back when I was in aquariums before… I hate to throw them away… and I am not going to use such a fine sand, that it goes through the slits in the plates and plugs everything up

Magnum Man said:

Well I would personally call this sand… anyone care to give me an exact definition???

This is the most “sandlike” substrate I have ever used… the Cory’s seem to like it…

These were the best under gravel filter plates available, back when I was in aquariums before… I hate to throw them away… and I am not going to use such a fine sand, that it goes through the slits in the plates and plugs everything up

Click to expand...

We are going from the photo, and to me that is certainly not sand. And sand will go through undergravel plates, so that seems to settle it.

From the link I posted of the “gravel” it’s 2mm to 4mm river rounded granules

This is the finest “gravel” I’ve ever used… btw… I didn’t see a definition… I’m not putting something so fine that I get bacteria pockets growing in the “mud”

I guess I’ll quit asking questions, and just go off and kill fish on my own… have a nice day…

It’s amazing how often a legitimate question goes unanswered here…

Substrate has to be more coarse than the factory slits on the filter plate… I’m using an under gravel filter, as I listed in the original post

This is from Wikipedia.

In terms of particle size as used by geologists, sand particles range in diameter from 0.0625 mm (or 1⁄16 mm) a volume of approximately 0.00012 cubic millimetres, to 2 mm, a volume of approximately 4.2 cubic millimetres, the difference in volumes being 34,688 measures difference.[6] Any particle falling within this range of sizes is termed a sand grain. Sand grains are between gravel (with particles ranging from 2 mm up to 64 mm by the latter system, and from 4.75 mm up to 75 mm in the former) and silt (particles smaller than 0.0625 mm down to 0.004 mm).

The sand I used for the past 12 years is less than 1 mm grain size.

Colin_T said:

unless it's a huge tank.

Click to expand...

I'm listening!

Geos are great fish if you do go down that route, I have two altifrons and want a couple more as now they are maturing they are stuning
They are a pain with plants though and just dig them out with the sand sifting

For me sand is something like this



This picture is Wio Heaven sand which has a bit of a varied grain size but very natural looking - you can find good examples online. I understand you've got the under gravel filter which isnt compatible with sand but gravel isnt really compatible with Geophagus so in a way under gravel filters are not compatible with Geophagus or sand sifting species...

I know you don't like it when people bear down on you so I usually try to just give you the information to make a decision, but in this situation I think you really need to make a decision on if you want gravel and an under gravel filter or Geophagus and other sand sifiting species.

Appreciate what you say about bacteria issues in sand but if that puts you off sand I really would avoid keeping Geophagus if you can't abide by that requirement of sand.

On a gravel bottom tank if you want cichlids, I'd say Festivums or a Laetacara species would be better choices, Festivums stay in the upper third but are not tall bodied like Angels and Lateacaras don't dig excessively and stay in the bottom third but not exclusively on the substrate like some other cichlids - I had a group of L.Thayeri for a while and they would spend their time around wood and rocks in the top of the bottom third (if that makes sense) most of the time.

Wills