Cichlid Tank Stocking Ideas?

[Bettatamer]

Hi guys, 
I had a nice little 10 gallon cichlid tank with my pair of convicts and their offspring, when I moved I had to give them away. I'm really missing them. 

 
So, on a better note I have been thinking about getting a 20 gallon and putting some cichlids in it!
Do you guys have any stocking ideas? Defiantly want to have some of these cichlids gosh, what were they? Let me put a description down below.
Anyways, I want smaller cichlids (5" or less) any ideas guys?
 
 
Mystery fish description;
Now, this was years ago so I shall post all I know to help you, but I don't have any more clues.
 
Females were bright yellow with horizontal black stripes, males were a deep blue with electric blue stripes.
They were extremely friendly (so says the LFS)
From what I could understand through the foreign accent of the employee it was something like 'japoke'
 
Hope we figure it out! Thanks guys!

oh yeah, the fry resemble females until their adult age, when females stay the same and males will start changing to blue.

 

[sawickib]

I dont know much about cichlids but I would say a 20 gallon can barely hold a pair of convict cichlids, let alone anything else, you could do the 20 gallon with just german ram cichlids... Like 5 or so no experience with any form of cichlid so sorry if I give bad info.

 

[Barb-barian]

i would second that you would have to go with the real small end cichlids for a 20g.  what you are describing sounds like a Kenyi and i would say they are not on the friendlier side.  Rams would be a good choice for a 20g and i would only stick to a pair of them.  you could get some other fish in with them but they may become aggressive to each other with more than a pair. Rams are popular but you can find some other types out there that stay pretty small

 

[RRaquariums]

I have both African and south American cichlids and I can tell you right now that you will need at least a 29 gallon for just one par of cichlids and that's only if there smaller cichlids.
This dose not apply to ram cichlids as they are very small and could be kept in a well planted 20 gallon long tank with good filtration.
If your going with a 20 gal I'd say some smaller fish that don't need a lot of swimming room sorry bro
If you have the space and wait for a 40 gallon breeder tank to go on sale you can get them cheap and I have kept small breeding groups of 1 male and 3 female cichlids in them like Yellow labs and German reds with no problem so that's an option

 

[RRaquariums]

Did the fish you described look kinda like this?
https/www.dropbox.com/s/jhdwi0g9wsbli2c/2014-02-05%2010.29.56-1.jpg

 

[kiwi210]

Could you post a picture of the mystery cichlids, please? 

 

[bricko]

Sounds like it could be a type of apistograma?  These are best kept in a trio with plenty of caves, they are very small south american cichlids.  A 20g migh be ok as long as you dont stock any other bottom dwellers that could clash with them.
 
http/www.apistogramma.com/forum/index.php
 
Im sure you will find all you need to know here

 

[thelaw]

in a 20 gallon tank you can put 3 ram cichlids or one convict cichlid a 10 gallon tank can not have 1 convict no the less 2 in a 10 gallon tank the only cichlid for a tank that small is one ram cichlid.