Adding Fish

[froggy7897]

Hello…I need advise about adding fish my tank. I have a 10 gal. Freshwater tank with 1 Upside Down Catfish and 1 Pleco. I would like to add some sort of Cichlid to my tank. I have heard that they are an aggressive fish, and don’t know if they will hurt the other fish. Is this something I could do?

 

[Spat_si]

What kind of pleco do you have?

And as most will tell you cichlids should be kept in their own tank....

 

[Cheese Specialist]

It depends what kind of cichlid. There are some that will do well in community tanks.

However, I do not think you should add any more fish that will get any bigger that tetra sized. Upside down catfish get to 4" and should really be kept in 3s. Also, many plecs get quite big and IMO even the smallest plecs could be too big and messy for a 10g.

Do you have plans to upgrade?

 

[froggy7897]

Not sure what kind of Pleco I have it is brown, if that helps...I am planning on upgrading to a 20 Gal Long...Whould the Ciclids attack the Cat Fish or the Pleco?

 

[Cheese Specialist]

Not sure what kind of Pleco I have it is brown, if that helps...I am planning on upgrading to a 20 Gal Long...Whould the Ciclids attack the Cat Fish or the Pleco?

It depends what kind of cichlids. You say your plec is brown, it is like this Link?

If so, you might want to consider renturning it. A 20g would never be big enough for a 14"-18" plec. If it's not, you need to find out what it is. Plecs vary in size, care and temprement.

As for the USD and the plec being bothered by any other fish, these should really have some wood to hide under. So, that shouldn't matter.

 

[Dwarfs]

Rams are relatively peaceful cichlids and i have better luck with the bolivian rams

 

[G_Sharky]

I say get rid of the pleco cause it will be way too big for your tank. If you want you could choose from a whole bunch of the Apistogramma species which are cichlids that could be put in a community and it only grows up to 3". Hope this helps

 

[justupgraded15]

I think that the cichlids would be okay with the pleco because they hide a lot of the time (if your tank allows them to). I would be concerned about the catfish though.
J.R.