What is the consensus on mixing SA and African cichlids?

[Aquanero]

Personnaly I think it just doesn't look good. I wouln't even mix CAs with SAs let alone Africans. That's just my taste, every time I see it I just think it's a terrable combination that looks like the tank was just thrown together with no thought or planning. Makes me think the person has no idea what they are doing, weather it's true or not it just looks that way to me.

 

[RD.]

Well yeah, that too. lol

I'm also generally not big on mixing any of the above due to personal aesthetic reasons. I have seen this type of set up referred to as "fish soup", and I typically tend to agree. Having said that I have one tank that contains a hyper dominant P. polleni, a single T. meeki, a single A. nigrofasciata, and a pair of super red BN plecos. And this is in a 6ft 125 gallon tank. A strange mix, but the only fish that have been able to survive with the larger male polleni. As much as I would have loved to keep this tank a strict biotope type set up, the only way that is going to play out is if the polleni has the tank to himself, which for me would have been too boring. I love the fish, so I did a work around with fish outside of his continent that have been tough enough (so far) to survive his fits of temper.

As far as sterilizing a tank, I wouldn't have used ammonia. I would have used bleach, then ran high salinity for 24 hrs or more, then let everything dry out.

 

[spiff44]

Yeah, I’m not that finicky on the fish regarding mixing them.. I always expected the tank to be something would evolve and change as I tried different things. I’m still a fan of keeping masses of small schooling fish but I’m thinking that’s the main contributing factor to pathogen propagation. I hear that live bearers are particularly vulnerable and the tank now has a self sustaining population of Mollies and Platies. I’m tempted to temporarily remove all the cover that has been allowing them so much success with that so they can slowly die off. A couple years from now it’ll probably only have bigger fish. I might try some Tinfoils for the schooling effect.

The comments on the hyper dominant fish.. that’s what I really want to avoid. So thanks for that feed back.

I used the ammonia because I figured it would be the way to disinfect and have any residue that didn’t gas off just go straight into the recycle process. That was my thinking at least.

 

[RD.]

Bleach actually oxidizes fairly rapidly, and any residual can be broken down and rendered safe with Seachem Prime.

 

[tanyaelec11]

I have mixed opinions . Only because I am a culprit of mixing . I have my polleni in with my parachromis species and I think they look wonderful. Its been 5 years and there has not been any major fights. But on the other hand I have put other fish into the mix and it did not work . I personally think it all really depends on the fish and its diet . Polleni's tend to be a lot smarter fish . I have spent hours and hours watching their behaviour .