63g sajica tank. Dithers?

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Lizardking

Lizardking

Jocke
MFK Member
Nov 9, 2006
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I guess some of you have read about my little sajica project, and so far I bought the tank, background and yesterday I put the sand in. ( pics comin when its all done). My first intention was to have oil cats and p.pictus for tankmates. But I have given up on the oilcats (and maybe the p.pictus too, I want fry. ).
TO THE POINT! :)

My Q is: why dithers? please explain. and which dithers can I have with sajicas? (Must be SA or CA.)
 
Hi in answer to your question

A lot of fish in nature use other fish around them to put them at ease, to show there's no predators about, etc. In the aquarium as in the wild, many fish will cower in corners or stay hidden all the time if they don't have other fish swimming about signaling to them that things are ok. So the basic theory behind using dither fish is putting fish in the tank to make the other fish more at ease.

This idea works especially well with cichlids. Silver Dollar's (not Tinfoil's) are a large 'dither' fish and peaceful making them a great dither fish. They are also SA origin and get to about 6-7 inches. Get a school of 6. If you get very small dither fish, they may be eaten!!

Catfish can be a problem as they are also bottom dwellers and can upset cichlid territories, especially when spawning. Also most cats are nocturnal scavengers/hunters, whilst most cichlids are diurnal. This can mean your cichlids are going to have a lot of sleepless nights!!

Dwarf Rams such as Microgeophagus Ramirezi. The red paradisefish, Macropodus opercularis, for both the more aggressive dwarf cichlids and medium sized cichlids. Also called a chinese Fighting Fish, not Sa or CA but will add some striking colours. Just do a bit of Google searching for other ideas.

Hope this helps
 
As covered above, Dithers are used to signal to other fish that it's safe out in the open, as well as sometimes being used as 'targets' to spread aggression.

If your fish aren't scared of you, I'd just go with something you're going to be happy with. Corydoras are one of my favourite 'community' fish and will help clean food scraps out of your substrate, just make sure if you keep them with Cichlids that they're either getting plenty of scraps, or substitute algae and protein wafers if your Sajica voraciously tear apart all food in the tank (like Cichlids tend to do).
 
Thank you very much for the explanations!
I think my tank are too small for SDs , but dont you think some kind of tetras would work? some of the larger one. I´m not into mixing fish from different continents.
 
japes;1704790; said:
No experience or knowledge about C. sajica here other than knowing they're smallish, high bodied Tetra like Serpae, Columbian, Bleeding Heart, etc. should be fine. Buenos Aeries Tetra will work if you don't have live plants.
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There will be lots of plants. Yes, Bleeding Heart would be really nice as dither.
 
japes;1704790; said:
No experience or knowledge about C. sajica here other than knowing they're smallish, high bodied Tetra like Serpae, Columbian, Bleeding Heart, etc. should be fine. Buenos Aeries Tetra will work if you don't have live plants.
Click to expand...

all of these should work.

i had black skort tetra with my breeding pair.
 
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