Festae are not timid... Maybe when it comes to owner responsiveness it seems that way but when it comes to other fish, festae are true terrors. I've had a few festae myself and I've had them by themselves, with SD's and other cichlids and IME midas are the best dithers out there for festae. Not labiatums but citrinellums
if your growing out a group then they would generally be fine with same species. Cause ultimately they will look to form a pair within the group and usually spawn within a short time of pairing.
That's when most of us remove the rest of the group and allow the pair to spawn. This technique works great with most cichlids and might work with some festae. But when they turn on eachother, dithers work better even with divider better than just divider alone to try and get the pair back in business. It really depends on the individual fish... And imo its cheaper to use midas and possibly loose a few to aggression vs using other festae which are more expensive and arent as easy to replace. SD's are decent Target fish but don't draw as much attention as other cichlids do either way good luck with your project.
if your growing out a group then they would generally be fine with same species. Cause ultimately they will look to form a pair within the group and usually spawn within a short time of pairing.That's when most of us remove the rest of the group and allow the pair to spawn. This technique works great with most cichlids and might work with some festae. But when they turn on eachother, dithers work better even with divider better than just divider alone to try and get the pair back in business. It really depends on the individual fish... And imo its cheaper to use midas and possibly loose a few to aggression vs using other festae which are more expensive and arent as easy to replace. SD's are decent Target fish but don't draw as much attention as other cichlids do
either way good luck with your project.