The biggest i have actually seen males get is around 14" tho their are some claims of 20." Would a 125 work for a pair for life?
Festae pair in a 125?
- Thread starter Addicted to Cichlids
- Start date
If you use a 125, you should be prepared to use an egg crate divider with an opening small enough for the female to get away from the male, and of course too small for the male to get thru. I agree with RD bigger would be safer, but there are no guarantees even a 180 or 200+ would protect her, without a divider.
The tank above is 6ft, and I kept the divider in permanently.
Another option would be to use target cichlids that distract the hormonal urges into the protection mode (but then again, there would be no guarantee they could actually be enough of a distraction).
I sometimes could put target fish behind a divider, and it occasionally worked.
In most of my cichlid tanks (whatever species) dividers were the norm.
I even kept a permanently divided bucket for picking up, and transporting pairs.
a divided beanii tank below
The tank above is 6ft, and I kept the divider in permanently.
Another option would be to use target cichlids that distract the hormonal urges into the protection mode (but then again, there would be no guarantee they could actually be enough of a distraction).
I sometimes could put target fish behind a divider, and it occasionally worked.
In most of my cichlid tanks (whatever species) dividers were the norm.
I even kept a permanently divided bucket for picking up, and transporting pairs.
a divided beanii tank below
Personally I think a 125 is adequate. As others have stated, divider and or target fish would probably be helpful. I kept my last pair in a 125 with a group of Malawi protomelas sp. "Steveni Taiwan". Both the pair and protomelas spawned regularly and barely noticed one another.
I'm just curious how long you kept that set up running successfully?
Obviously a lot will depend on the pair, some play nice, some not so much. I would personally consider an adult male festae too cramped in a 125, but I'm a bit anal about fish size vs tank size, so maybe that's just me.
Either way, as Duane stated, you best keep a divider handy.
Pics of my Festae tank taken 5 mins ago, just as a reference. The tank is 2 meters, about 6.5 ft long and 600mm front to back just under 2ft. I'm always having to use a divider. One month it's in another it's out. The male can turn nasty at any time. One week there breeding happily next week there nearly killing one another. The male is 12inch.
Rd. I had the festae and the protomelas together for a couple years or more. Festae weren't done growing but were quite large (female 9 or 10 inch, male 11 or more). The protomelas had basically stopped growing. I had two males that spent most of their time staking out each end of the tank. The festae swam freely from one end to the other.
Meh not it to having to divide the tank, looks like I'll have to find another species, it's annoying rapps or Coa arnt shipping this week and my lfs has such a small selection