American Cichlid Tank setups

[Bill83]

Alright so with all of this information i am rethinking some of my plans. Im going to move my mbunas into my 120 gallon tank.

Now back to the americans i will have a 125 6 foot for them BUT before i even consider them i tested all my tap water last night.

7.7 PH
3 dKH
10 dGH

In my mbuna tank the low KH from my tap doesn't matter because its being buffed to 8.1 with substrate. The above water parameters from my tap make me think housing any american cichlids will be a problem.. If i buff the KH with crushed coral/aragonite then i run into an issue where my PH is too high.

When i had my planted tank setup with CO2 my PH dropped to like 7.3-7.5

 

[duanes]

Am I being redundant?
With that 7.7 pH, and elevated general hardness, I would avoid S American low pH, and soft water fishes.
10 ' GH is equivalent 178 ppm general hardness, not overly hard, but not soft.
Central American, or west of the Andes S Americans would work.

 

[Bill83]

With that 7.7 pH, and elevated general hardness, I would avoid S American low pH, and soft water fishes.
Central American, or west of the Andes S Americans would work.

I dont really know where each fish comes from geographically would you be able to give me some examples also does any of this really matter if the fish are captive bred ?

 

[Bill83]

Firemouth
Jack Dempsey
Convict
Cuban
Texas
Midas
Nicaraguan

I like the idea of like a firemouth group with maybe 1 jack dempsey

 

[scottts210]

I find if you allow nitrates to climb above 5 ppm, and you have hard, high pH water, Oscars eventually will get HITH.
If you have soft low pH water you might get away with a nitrate level of 10 ppm, but even then, I consider 10ppm nitrate to be a chronic disease producer.
If you have a canister filter, my regime would be cleaning the gunk out, at least once per week, because that gunk is a nitrate precursor.
And to get nitrates to a safe level, only lots of water changes are effective. One 50% water change per week, will probably "not" be enough.

If a regime of two 50% water changes per reduces nitrate then that's what you need.

If it takes three 40% water changes to keep nitrate low, then that's what you need.

For my tank, I find a regime, of 30% to 40% water changes every other day, does the job.
Here is my average nitrate and pH test.
View attachment 1534842

Understood. Thanks much. I was wondering if there was some unusual reason I hadn't heard of why canisters needed to be cleaned frequently, but I get it, its nitrates generated by gunk. Cleaning two FX-6's weekly is a daunting idea. I do water changes needed to keep nitrates below 10 which has gotten a lot easier with the addition of plants. I'll shoot for 5ppm nitrate.

 

[duanes]

Firemouth
Jack Dempsey
Convict
Cuban
Texas
Midas
Nicaraguan

I like the idea of like a firemouth group with maybe 1 jack dempsey

All the above would do well in your water parameters , with the caveat that territorially, if all kept together there might be a blood bath.

 

[Bill83]

All the above would do well in your water parameters , with the caveat that territorially, if all kept together there might be a blood bath.

Yeah im thinking just 1 JD and maybe 4-6 FM

 

[SAGuy]

I know oscars will destroy plants and pretty much anything else they can dig up but do you guys know of any other setups i can do with a planted tank ?

My oscars don't touch my plants. They have no interest in them. I do place them next to larger rocks and driftwood, but I've never had an issue with oscars and plants.

 

[SAGuy]

Also, here is my opinion on your question. I've tried several different combinations of cichlids over the years. For one thing, I wouldn't mix CA and SA, ever. Not suggesting that was your intention; just saying.

I also don't think CA communities work well, either. There could be exceptions with the right fish, and some people make it work by crowding big tanks, but I wouldn't do it.

IMHO, the best mixed cichlid tank is SA ... I use and have had success combining oscars with other cichlids. Oscars are pigs but actually quite peaceful. IMHO, with SA cichlids, conspecific aggression is the biggest issue. For that reason, I prefer to run singles, but some species are obviously better in shoals. So there is somewhat of a compromise.

But in general, I think oscars work well with severum, blue acara, and angelfish and many geo-types (with sand only - I prefer gravel so don't run geos). The trick with trying to introduce other cichlids is that they might be aggressive towards the severum and angelfish. For example, chocolates are fine with oscars, but they will bother the other cichlids. It's a balancing act.

Someone above mentioned Threadfin acara. They're on my list, but I have not tried them. Beautiful fish.

All of this is of course IMHO and IME.

 

[SAGuy]

My current setup is:
1 Tiger Oscar
1 Wild Oscar
1 Blue Acara
1 Severum
2 Angelfish
3 Plecos

My biggest aggression concern in this tank is the angelfish, believe it or not... the rest are very chill. I have two because my wife likes them, and they are different variants. Singles is the key, IMHO.