Firemouth Questions

[someguy]

I've done some research on firemouths and seem to be getting two general versions

1 "our firemouth is placid and never even touches our tetra/guppy/dwarf something"
2 "our firemouth is a terror and killed our oscar. Cool!"

I know a lot is dependent on individual fish. We're planning on upgrading to a 5 or 6 foot tank and are thinking of new additions. Right now we have in an four footer; two keyholes, 1 uaru, 3 bristlenose, 4 cories, 2 pearl gouramis, 2 danios, 2 tetras, 1 S. jurupari.

The danios and tetras are accepable casulties, the cories are NOT. The tank's not currently overstocked as the uaru and Satanoperca jurupari aren't fully grown and we'll be moving everything into a new tank before they get too big.

So is a firemouth likely to devour our cories and oppress our keyholes?

Our lfs [cichlid specialists] said one firemouth would behave ok, does that sound reasonable? If we got a juvenile would it behave better? what about male vs female? Is it possible to sex juveniles? Would it be best to get the new firemouth at the same time as we move the other fish so the tank is neutral territry? [hmm ie they can fight for all of it not just their pre-establised bits. Maybe not]

Thankyou for your patience!

 

[Ferris]

Tricky one that, it could work but there would be a pretty high element of risk. In my experience FM's are not overly aggressive but they are cichlids and temperament can vary greatly. The FM is going to grow substantially larger than the cories and keyholes and could do some real damage if it wanted to.

If its going to work, i think adding the FM as a juvenile is the best bet, male or female shouldn't make much difference. Its one of those to try but be prepared to return the FM if things don't work out, there is no definate answer.

 

[scrappy]

Firemouths are odd fish to be specific about, i had two in the same tank and one got bullied by the other so i moved the less aggressive one to another tank, he lived with some of my baby Sajica for a while and then got rehoused with a community of neons & danios. No problems at all.

The more aggressive Firemouth is housed with a Jack Dempsey and Green Terror twice his size, and a Sajica & Salvini just marginally larger than him. He still flares his throat at the Sajica & Salvini occasionally but hes pretty scared of the Jack & GT.

Both were kept in tanks with 4 or more corys in and no cory of mine has ever been attacked by any of my large cichlids, the only time ive ever seen a cory get attacked is when they roam too close to a breeding parent who are looking after eggs or wrigglers.

Anyway thats my experience of keeping FM with other cichlids & corys and smaller fish like neons and the likes.