I was wondering if anyone had ever tried this before and what the results were. If you were to try it what species would you attempt it with?
Keeping Rift Lake Cichlids In Community Tanks
- Thread starter Supergeorge123
- Start date
It's been done many,many times, here are some tankmates I've seen it done with:
Koi,oscars, jewel cichlids,clown loaches,pictus catfish, various plecos,silver dollars,African aros,tiger barbs,green sunfish,bluegill.
Koi,oscars, jewel cichlids,clown loaches,pictus catfish, various plecos,silver dollars,African aros,tiger barbs,green sunfish,bluegill.
The reason I ask is that I am not that interested in them except for some of the julidochromis and pseudotropheus species. I would rather add them to a community tank than setup a separate tank for just one fish.
Aren't a lot of those more softwater/ neutral water fish? I was thinking something like larger livebearers.
Most can actually be kept with many non rift species, key is either high amount of fish or lots of hiding places
Many fish can tolerate massive differences in hardness if acclimated properly , for example oscars and many s. And Central Americans do very well here, even tho our water is rock hard
You always get conflicting advice regarding cichlids, that's certainly what my research has taught me. Some people say never ever mix cichlids from the 3 big African lakes (Malawi, tanganyika, victoria). And yet i've seen tanks with them all mixed and they're fine. Others say don't mix cichlids with other freshwater fish and yet I bet we've all seen mixed peaceful community tanks with africans in there. Granted, there are some right headbanging cichlids which'll kill everything in the tank, even fish bigger than them.
I'm introducing some tanganyikan frontosa to a large community plywood build next year hopefully. Luckily the frontosa is one of the more placid cichlids so I should be fine...he says! The high ph of the African lakes isn't a problem. More and more people nowadays just let the African cichlids acclimatise to whatever water they've been blessed with rather than trying to change the chemistry of the water to suit the fish.
I also think that a lot of problems regarding mixing cichlids arises from tank size and decor. Big tanks with decor to break up line of sight are better than smaller quite bare tanks where the fish are constantly in each others faces.
I'm introducing some tanganyikan frontosa to a large community plywood build next year hopefully. Luckily the frontosa is one of the more placid cichlids so I should be fine...he says! The high ph of the African lakes isn't a problem. More and more people nowadays just let the African cichlids acclimatise to whatever water they've been blessed with rather than trying to change the chemistry of the water to suit the fish.
I also think that a lot of problems regarding mixing cichlids arises from tank size and decor. Big tanks with decor to break up line of sight are better than smaller quite bare tanks where the fish are constantly in each others faces.
……. a lot of the problems with mixing cichlids is due to their behavioural differences that evolved over hundreds of years. Some of these behavioural characteristics are apparently too subtle for many to see, or understand, yet over the long haul often lead to a life of stress. In this hobby success seems to be measured very differently from one hobbyist to another.