Hi, welcome to the forum and the hobby!
Is this your first tank ever? Or do you mean the first tank of this size?
I would have recommendations about tank size, except my first concern is about what you'd like from this tank, and whether all of these fish are compatible once they're adults and begin breeding. You'd have three territorial cichlid species breeding in the same tank, and since I'm not a cichlid keeper, and only know bits and pieces about them like how territorial and aggressive they can be, especially when breeding, that is my first concern. So I'm tagging the people I know that are super knowledgeable about these species since they can give much better advice about the stocking!
@Wills @GaryE
When I say about what you'd like from the tank, since you have all pairs, are you hoping to breed and raise young? Because if so, you're likely going to need to separate at least some of the species into breeding tanks so the fish will breed and the fry won't be eaten by all the others. Or have to remove fry asap to another tank to raise them, so you'll need to think about this before rushing out and buying one big tank for all of them, then finding out you really want several smaller tanks for your breeding plans.
If you're not looking to raise and sell the fry and don't mind them being eaten that's okay, but still have to think about whether the fish will still be okay with each other if one or more species is in breeding condition/has fry, whether they'll take over territories and bully and stress the other fish.
I know nothing about these two species I'm afraid, but the website SeriouslyFish is a reliable and trustworthy site written by scientists and experts in the hobby, that most of us on the forum recommend and trust. It gives important info about most every species in the hobby; like temp and water requirements, minimum tank size and compatability with other fish. There's a lot of confusing misinformation out there, and advice from fellow hobbyists like me isn't always reliable either! So always research heavily, and don't trust every random webpage article or store employees advice. Aways do your own research and look for info from hobbyists who are very experienced with keeping/breeding the species you have.
Definitely worth reading the Seriously Fish profiles on all the fish you currently have. Like in their profile about
Electric Blue Acaras they mention how generally peaceful they are, but in the breeding section say:
"One of the easiest
substrate spawning cichlids to breed in the hobby. The best way to obtain a
pair is to buy 6 young fish and allow them to grow and
pair off naturally. Once a
pair forms it is wise to remove the other fish unless the
tank is very large."
Their minimum recommended tank size says: "An aquarium with base measurements of 120 cm x 30 cm or equivalent is just about sufficient to house a pair." That's the same as my 63 USg/240 L Roma tank, and that's the minimum for a breeding pair of Acaras, not accounting for other lower layer breeding fish like the Apistos.
Do you know which species of Apisto they are? Love them and want some myself someday, gorgeous fish. But I've generally seen people who want to breed them keeping them a 20-30g as the only ground dwelling fish because of the territorial nature when they breed, maybe with mid-water or top dwellers. I'd also be a bit concerned about size difference in the adult fish, since I don't know how large the above cichlids get. So they're one of the species I wonder if they might be better alone or perhaps with the gourami in a separate tank.
They are super pretty! It's good that you've said that, since now you can focus on building a tank set up around keeping those ones in particular, giving them at least the minimum sized tank they need, and carefully considering whether the other species will stress them out later on once adult and potentially breeding, or if it would be better to rehome/have other set ups for the others, and choose more suitable tank mates.
As for how large the tank, as said above, look at the minimum tank size Seriously Fish gives for each species, and where you plan to keep the tank! Aim to go larger than the minimum if you can, and aim to keep it understocked, rather than overstocked!
It's always tempting, especially when we're new to the hobby and want to keep all the fish, to ask "how many can I fit in this sized tank?" We want colour and activity at all levels of the tank so it's enjoyable to look at, and see beautiful fish in the stores that it's so tempting to impulse buy, add to the tank and hope for the best. But that temptation to put as many different fish as possible into the tank we already have is what causes the most problems for beginners.
An fully stocked or overstocked tank requires much more maintenance than an understocked one, because the water quality can go bad rapidly when a crisis happens like a few missed water changes when there's a family emergency, the tank gets overfed or a fish dies and causes an ammonia spike, or a filter clogs and stops working - and equipment failure happens to all of us at some point or another. In an understocked and planted tank the same things can go wrong, but because of the lower bioload and help from live plants, the keeper has more time to spot and remedy the issue before the ammonia levels shoot up and cause a cascading crisis and a tank crash.
However the little I know about cichlids is that fully/overstocking is often done purposefully in order to manage aggression between the fish, and that planted tanks often don't work some of those types of fish as they eat any plants and it isn't their typical habitat. I don't know enough about their methods or whether this applies to any of your species though, but I know that they stay very on top of maintenance and rely on much more powerful filtration to manage the bioload.
Hope this helps at least a little, but the people I've tagged will know much more!
thank you so much. I will definitely consider taking the Ellioti couple back my LFS. Oh should I give back both or I can give back one of them? They haven’t formed a pair yet or doesn’t look like at least.
