Kicking Around A Few Ideas

[malfunction]

Hi all,

I recently got a pair of Texas cichlids that are currently in quarantine with my convict cichlids. After seeing how stunning Texas cichlids are, I'm leaning more and more towards setting up an aggressive CA/SA cichlid tank. They'd probably go in my 7' tank, and the fish under consideration are:

Texas cichlid
Firemouth
Blue acara
Jack Dempsey
Green terror
Convict
Rotkeil severum
Jewel

I'm not planning on getting all of these fish, these are just the ones I'm particularly interested in. What are your thoughts on housing these fish together?

 

[star4]

If the texas are a pair then personally none of the above. If you can get all the same sex texas they will do well in a group. I had a group of 7 males they look brilliant in a group.
 
From your list I have kept texas with all except jewel, blue acara (too placid IMO) and the GT without problems.

 

[malfunction]

Ok, thanks for the assist. If I were to have a single male specimen of all of the fish on the list, do you think it would?

 

[star4]

Convict, these are brave enough to challange a texas, but fast enough to get out of the way. I would go with convicts. JD as a second choice.
 
Firemouth (I had ellioti) this will flare and annoy a texas if they so choose but dont have the means to back up their flaring once a fish "runs" the texas keeps searching it out. JD, a JD would be good, mine was really "best pals" with one of my texas, but if they decided they dont like each other a JD can do a lot more damage as they have a much bigger mouth. Rotkeil: My experience with Rotkeils is they are very placid, the most placid of the severums I have kept, I had a breeding pair in with my texas, fun at times but no serious damage.
Hope this helps a little.

 

[malfunction]

Yeah thanks - actually helps a lot.

 

[AeonMapa]

hey, first of all you shouldn't keep a jewel in there with those cichlids. Its from a different area and has different requirements. Also jewels are extremely troublesome. In a 7 foot tank you shouldn't have any problems keeping 5 or even 6-7 mid sized to large cichlids. If you do go for all males you have a better chance to keep more fish, although you could even keep a pair of something in there as well.
 
I would choose 6-7 of these cichlids and secure one of each, see if they grow up together peacefully and if not you might have to rehome one or two, These are all true semi aggressive cichlids that can stand up to one another,
Jack Dempsey
Green Terror
Texas
Convict
Red or Gold Severum (rotkeils are kind of small and passive, but the red and gold sevs get bigger and quite chunky so they can stand their ground in this kind of tank)
May I also suggest the Nandopsis Salvini? Google it, it grows to be a little larger than a convict, but has beautiful coloration and can definitely stand up for itself!
 
The acaras, firemouths and rotkeils are a little weaker and might have it badly in this set up, unless you set up a pair that can back each other up. In that case a pair and maybe 2-3 other cichlids will do well in your tank.
Choose a good dither fish as well it helps a lot with aggression in a tank your size you can do silver dollars or large rainbowfish
And of course aquascaping is everything with cichlids, make lots of caves nooks and overhangs, and break the line of sight along the tank as much as you possibly can
good luck!       

 

[star4]

 
Choose a good dither fish as well it helps a lot with aggression in a tank your size you can do silver dollars or large rainbowfish
And of course aquascaping is everything with cichlids, make lots of caves nooks and overhangs, and break the line of sight along the tank as much as you possibly can
good luck!       

 
 
Absolutely NO to adding silver dollars with texas cichlids, really really bad idea. 

 

[AeonMapa]

why what happens?

 

[star4]

I had 3 silver dollars (rescue) and I added them with the texas, within seconds of them being released they were set upon the texas removing scales rapidly. I did manage to re-catch the 3 dollars again before the texas killed them.

 

[AeonMapa]

ohh sorry to hear that! I wonder if that's a species thing or a thing with that particular texas cichlid

 

[star4]

I had 6 of them at the time, all 6 went for the silver dollars. They never seemed to like silver fish at all.

 

[AeonMapa]

haha ok well maybe then go for giant danios or denisons barbs instead or something