Sajica Cichlid -75 Gallon Set Up
- Thread starter platy21
- Start date
Look forward to seeing what you do in your fishroom.
Most of my tanks have the CaribSea Super Naturals Peace River or the slightly larger Rio Grande.
I do have a bunch of this that Im going to switch the sajica over to.
It’s actually much smaller gravel than what the picture makes it out to be, and hopefully the Sajica dont look so dark all the time
Hadn't mentioned it but I had tried a group of green mollies as tankmates when I got the first sajica and a bunch had some large bites on them and were killed in the first 24hrs. Likely the pearsei got them. Even though a vegetarian, still a cichlid at heart. That said, the largerst sajica also had one of the large bite marks on it and it passed this morning. So I moved the pearsei out, so we will see how the 3 do. Worst case, I could swing back up to the store to pick up a few more. Only other tankmates are two chubby pleco growouts which in no way would have done that kind of damage.
Most fish will fight with things at their trophic level. That's why you have problems when keeping sifting or other bottom dwelling cichlids with catfish or other bottom dwellers. Aggressive grazer isn't going to tolerate other grazers. Same reason why you can contrarily keep big predatory fish with big grazers, because they aren't competing for anything.
Was hoping the pearsei would just ignore the smaller fishes. In this case I really do not believe it was aggressive behavior but rather feeding instinct. I truly believe the fish was hungry and did a ‘taste’ test and realized it wasn’t food. Of course because the sheer size difference this would prove deadly to any smaller fish. I did put the pearsei in the 300 because I felt it was big enough to not get ate by the 20” endli. This combo as you mentioned worked great in the past with my old pearsei. Even though a total piggy would not touch raw tilapia meant for the bichirs.
With this 65B set up the goal really is for a big solo male sajica. Who knows, maybe one of the two could be what I want, but I usually start with a bit bigger group to begin. The two I lost were the bigger in the group and I felt one was very dominant and seemed to have red coming in so hope was male.
A little off topic, but would you perhaps be interested in a male nicoya convict instead?
Really any of the smaller cichlids would have worked well in my 65B but the Sajica was very appealing to me because the males really remind me of a little mini amphilophus and I really like the blue eyes.
If you think sajica looks like a mini amphilophus, wait till you see:
And I will admit sajica has the most piercing blue eyes, with septemfasciata being a close second. But what do you think of purple?
Swung by the fish store that had the sajica and I bought the last of them and added 4 more. With the pearsei out of the tank the 6 sajica should do well. For fun I fed some mysis shrimp and the new fish went right for the food and started feeding.
