2 GT's in one tank? Also, Temperment experience...

[Cohazard]

You just have to take the plunge....a 180 is a big tank, try to make as many caves/hiding spots as necessary. another tip I have found useful for mixing the bigger species is to buy female fish; the tand to be a lot more mellow in my experience and with SA/CA cichlids the females are usually as good looking as the males if not better(Salvini, Festae eg). I would also get some 'dithers', silver dollars work best for me 4 would look great in your tank...

The worst aggression in my opinion in a tank is when you have either 2 or 3 fish. 2 fish you get constant aggro, 3 and the smallest always gets bullied by the rest....

Good luck

Thanks for the advice scarysdad! I did some extra research on the GT's earlier today and read bout the importance of numbers. Exactly what you posted: 2 and they'll constantly fight... 3 and the dominant one will terrorize the other two.. So I bought yet another juvie GT making it 4 total for the tank.

I also bought two more micro oscars (they're about the size of my thumb, half the size of the GT's). This gets me close to your suggestion of 10 12" or so fish [oh a side note, I like the way you stock tanks! I'm not one of those "huge-tank-two-fish" people either

I'm going to try giant danios as dithers just to put less weight on the bioload, but if they get eaten, I'll seek out some red hook silver dollars.

But with that, my tank is fully stocked now. It's going to be great watching all these lil guys grow huge and fill out all the space.

Right now, I do have three large pieces of driftwood that gives the GT's a lot of places to cruise around and duck under, but so far they seem to be following each in a group. No aggression or violence, just... following the leader? Not what I expected. We'll see....

 

[Headrush]

If I were you I'd slow down a bit. You're playing with fire IMO. Yeah sounds like a cool idea and theres always a possibility such ideas will work, BUT In my experience, Blue JD's are no where near the GT on the agression scale and will not reach the same size. Two strikes against you from the start. I've also read that a lot of Blue JD's die unexpectedly, or end up with significant health issues. My Blue JD was killed by my GT in less than a day. This was after a month of buddy buddy stuff betwen them and other cichlids. They were the same size too. The Blue just couldn't hang with the others (GT, Salvini, regular JD). At the price of Blue JD's I'd sort out their compatibility before diving in buying several of each. Several GT's in the same tank sounds risky in itself.

Just make sure you do a lot of research beforehand. I wouldn't want you to find yourself in a tight spot.

That will be one sweet tank tho if it all works out

Good luck

 

[Cohazard]

If I were you I'd slow down a bit. You're playing with fire IMO. Yeah sounds like a cool idea and theres always a possibility such ideas will work, BUT In my experience, Blue JD's are no where near the GT on the agression scale and will not reach the same size. Two strikes against you from the start. I've also read that a lot of Blue JD's die unexpectedly, or end up with significant health issues. My Blue JD was killed by my GT in less than a day. This was after a month of buddy buddy stuff betwen them and other cichlids. They were the same size too. The Blue just couldn't hang with the others (GT, Salvini, regular JD). At the price of Blue JD's I'd sort out their compatibility before diving in buying several of each. Several GT's in the same tank sounds risky in itself.

Just make sure you do a lot of research beforehand. I wouldn't want you to find yourself in a tight spot.

That will be one sweet tank tho if it all works out

Good luck

Thanks for the input Headrush, but know that there is method to my madness lol (believe it or not ). Rest assured that I've researched my fish before purchasing them and I'm fully aware of what I'm dealing with, which is why I was looking for first hand experience before I went any further.

But I decided against more blue dempseys however because it is a PITA to grow them out. The one I have took a year to grow to 5-6" from a .5" juvie. And you're right... they are sort of hit and miss as juvies (I had 2 die on me before I got one that survived and made it past the 'magic' 3" mark). At $20-25 a pop, the idea wasn't for the faint of heart.

So my logic was to go with oscars instead because they grow fast and are known for keeping GT's in check; which will help curb the inevitable aggression between the GT's when they're older. Part of the balance I'm trying to create in the equation that is this stock plan.

The Blue just couldn't hang with the others (GT, Salvini, regular JD).

That would be expected (at least to me anyways). Salvini's are known for being downright nasty (I was considering them for my first CA/SA tank a looong time ago, and researched them).

I would not have tried to mix a peaceful blue dempsey with a salvini and a regular JD unless it was a full grown blue dempsey and the salvini and reg JD were small juvies. That might produce different results... might not... hasn't been done before, so it's one of those things that would just have to be experimented with.