I am a huge fan of mixing Americans with Africans , particularly when mixing central americans and africans, as their endemic water types are so similar.
I'd like to say that even south americans and rift lake africans would work fine-- given the countless different water types used by keepers of CAs, SAs, and Rift Lakers, although that could be considered a controversial statement. I haven't tried much in the way of SAs and Rift Lakers but for about 6 months, when I kept a green terror with malawi/tang cichlids in hard water of pH 8. I must say the GTs in my LFSes look perfectly healthy, as did my own GT until the day my Texas decided to slay him. Things like this really make me ponder over the necessity of specific water parameters for cichlids of all types.
My water as well as my city's water is around 9 degrees GH with pH of 8.1 or so. Kribs, jewels, redbelly pikes and GTs seem to do just as well in it as tropheus, frontosa and any CA cichlid you can shake a stick at.
I'd like to state a personal, not-fully-tested theory that as long as your water parameters aren't subject to regular serious change, your cichlids will live perfectly healthily, regardless of what their endemic water parameters may be. Now, in the relatively loooong run, I speculate that water parameters might have more bearing on deciding whether a given fish will naturally 10 years, or 15 years.
A potential crux of this argument is that we are generally limited to judging how healthy our fish are by a distant visual examination of the fish's outer body. We can't give our fish cancer checkups or monitor their bowel movements. But since distant visual exams are about as good as we can reasonably get, they are the standard for judging fish health.
This is just a wandering drivel of my thoughts/observations on the matter of cichlid water parameters and mixing different cichlids; I plodded on multiple issues to discuss if anyone is feeling so inclined.
View attachment 1079888
I'd like to say that even south americans and rift lake africans would work fine-- given the countless different water types used by keepers of CAs, SAs, and Rift Lakers, although that could be considered a controversial statement. I haven't tried much in the way of SAs and Rift Lakers but for about 6 months, when I kept a green terror with malawi/tang cichlids in hard water of pH 8. I must say the GTs in my LFSes look perfectly healthy, as did my own GT until the day my Texas decided to slay him. Things like this really make me ponder over the necessity of specific water parameters for cichlids of all types.
My water as well as my city's water is around 9 degrees GH with pH of 8.1 or so. Kribs, jewels, redbelly pikes and GTs seem to do just as well in it as tropheus, frontosa and any CA cichlid you can shake a stick at.
I'd like to state a personal, not-fully-tested theory that as long as your water parameters aren't subject to regular serious change, your cichlids will live perfectly healthily, regardless of what their endemic water parameters may be. Now, in the relatively loooong run, I speculate that water parameters might have more bearing on deciding whether a given fish will naturally 10 years, or 15 years.
A potential crux of this argument is that we are generally limited to judging how healthy our fish are by a distant visual examination of the fish's outer body. We can't give our fish cancer checkups or monitor their bowel movements. But since distant visual exams are about as good as we can reasonably get, they are the standard for judging fish health.
This is just a wandering drivel of my thoughts/observations on the matter of cichlid water parameters and mixing different cichlids; I plodded on multiple issues to discuss if anyone is feeling so inclined.
View attachment 1079888
