African cichlids with American cichlids
- Thread starter JackSparrow
- Start date
It can work and depending on your definition of successful, I’ve been successful at it. I just saw a tank the other day with mbuna,haps, peacocks , and two large Oscar’s and everyone looked healthy and he said it’s been like that for a few years. That being said, more likely than not it’s not going to work and I don’t like mixing them and don’t recommend it.
I’ve seen it done, but it’s not something I’d generally recommend. Assuming you get fish that match params well, there’s a good chance you’ll run into issues regarding predation and aggression (especially from the mbuna). You’d probably have best success if all were added at the same time - cichlids aren’t too fond of newcomers. That was the biggest challenge I had with my mbunas - until the auratus decided that nobody should be alive.
I have successfully mixed non rift lake cichlids with CA/SA though. In my tank with a krib colony I also have a rainbow, severum, and (recently) a blood parrot. None of these would be able to compete with mbuna though.
I have successfully mixed non rift lake cichlids with CA/SA though. In my tank with a krib colony I also have a rainbow, severum, and (recently) a blood parrot. None of these would be able to compete with mbuna though.
More details are needed.
By Africans, do you mean rift lake species? and which Americans?
Rift lake species prefer hard, high pH water, which could work with Central Americans, if the tank is large enough.
But might be problematic with Amazonian S Americans that prefer soft, low pH water, such a most of the severum clade, or most Geophagines.
There may also be a problem trying to mix herbivores with piscavores.
If you mean mbuna or Tropheous? those that prefer a low protein diet, trying to combine with piscivores, one or the other could be getting too much of a good thing, because it may be hard to separate feeding areas, for who gets what.
Mbuna or Tropheus, if in the course of feeding get too much meaty food, can end up bloating.
Temp could also be an issue (although less so)
The average temp of areas in the rift lakes with fish live, are in the mid 70sF,
species from Amazonia like severums are more comfortable in the low 80sF.
Or Gymnogeophagines from Southern S American that need a bit of a winter cool down to high 60s, too low for many Africans.
And then there's territoriality, which, if you want to combine Central Americans with Africans could be a problem as Centrals mature, requiring more and more individual space.
If you choose species by doing some intense research, about feeding, temps, territoriality and water parameters it may work, but just randomly combining continents can be brought with pot holes.
By Africans, do you mean rift lake species? and which Americans?
Rift lake species prefer hard, high pH water, which could work with Central Americans, if the tank is large enough.
But might be problematic with Amazonian S Americans that prefer soft, low pH water, such a most of the severum clade, or most Geophagines.
There may also be a problem trying to mix herbivores with piscavores.
If you mean mbuna or Tropheous? those that prefer a low protein diet, trying to combine with piscivores, one or the other could be getting too much of a good thing, because it may be hard to separate feeding areas, for who gets what.
Mbuna or Tropheus, if in the course of feeding get too much meaty food, can end up bloating.
Temp could also be an issue (although less so)
The average temp of areas in the rift lakes with fish live, are in the mid 70sF,
species from Amazonia like severums are more comfortable in the low 80sF.
Or Gymnogeophagines from Southern S American that need a bit of a winter cool down to high 60s, too low for many Africans.
And then there's territoriality, which, if you want to combine Central Americans with Africans could be a problem as Centrals mature, requiring more and more individual space.
If you choose species by doing some intense research, about feeding, temps, territoriality and water parameters it may work, but just randomly combining continents can be brought with pot holes.
I’ve always found my rifties do best in the low 80s. When I mixed rift and new worlds, I found the biggest challenge is the way they establish dominance. They have completely different ways of communicating and fighting and diet was also a big problem. The couple times I mixed them was 20 years ago and I mixed a few mbuna with a pair of convicts in a 75 and had a single fire mouth in a hap tank, it “worked” meaning none of them died but it definitely wasn’t ideal. If i were to try it again, which i won’t, I’d go with frontosa with some similar sized NWs that have similar diets. Non rift Africans would be a much better option but I’m pretty certain most people mean rifties when they say Africans
It can certainly be done, and is actually quite often done. Not everyone publicly talk about it because they get dumped on by others a lot unnecessarily, but generally there's no real issue mixing americans and africans that is not similar to mixing cichlids from the same continent (or even keeping a single species).
Even things like pH differences - there's differences in pH of natural habitats for cichlids from the same continent anyways. And turns out, cichlids generally easily thrive in a wider pH range than from their original habitat anyways. Plenty of people keep african cichlids at much lower pH, and american cichlids at vice versa.
Aggression? Same thing - a whole range from the same continent.
Even diet. Here's one of many studies on the protein content of food for african cichlids: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1577/A04-038.1, and yeah, higher diet does not cause problems, but does promote growth up to 42.5%, and is perfectly fine even when higher anyways. So feeding a higher diet protein is fine.
Differences in behaviours? Perhaps - this is something that is more contested, but that can apply to different species from the same continent as well. And that's not exactly a big enough argument against anyways.
So yeah, mixing african and american cichlids is perfectly fine in my book. Perfectly fine. Generally anyways. For me, the same rule applies whether keeping cichlids from the same continent or different ones: the range of aggression and size cannot be too different, and there has to be enough individuals to spread out aggression. That's all.
I actually like this, I’ve seen it done successfully by others many times and I had some success, but I think I’ve been indoctrinated because now it’s like nails on a chalkboard when I see it and will never do it again lol
A few months ago had to remove a striped convict which was getting dealt with from a pair of white convict. Only aquarium available was the 180 inhabitants african peacock. After a couple of weeks tossed the white male convict in. The striped immediately recognized the white male and chased him. Today they are doing fine and look good. I stated in another thread I wanted to add more male convicts as an experiment. I'm not going to add anymore african cichlids though.
I had heard that the two cichlid types would cross breed and hybridize which had been frowned on by purists. Don't know if it's true as that's never been my thing.
I also don't know that cross breeding is all that bad. Who hasn't had a tank full of guppies and one randy Endler?
I also don't know that cross breeding is all that bad. Who hasn't had a tank full of guppies and one randy Endler?
I never heard of African and CA cichlids cross breeding. Yes hybrids are frowned on by purist hobbyist.