Festae tank mate ideas...

[Decker504]

One thing to keep in mind is the SCHOOL effect. I visited Don Conkel on vacation last year and he told the benefits of growing cichlids out together when they are very young and small. He said it creates bonds and a pecking order, much like in a school of fry. When they grow up together they are less likely to kill each other, but anything is possible. At 8in your festae are pretty much considered ADULT which makes adding fish a crap shoot. This makes them way more territorial to a new fish as in comparison to growing out the festae and geos, sevs, etc. from say 2 inches up to 8 together. Ever since he told me this, I've tried it and its basically worked for me and I thought back to all the times I lost a fish when adding them in at over 6 inches. If you had a 500 gallon plus tank, things might me different. When you set up your fish room try starting a group of different cichlids in something small like a 40/55 and move them up and you might get better results.

From DJ/MC Decker

 

[David R]

I'll second that, trying to introduce more tankmates with your fish at that size in a 150g tank has a pretty low chance of success (you never know tho, it could be that you have the mellowest festae pair ever!). IMO you'd be better off devoting the 150g to the pair and get them breeding. I found my pair weren't interested in spawning when I still had my school of 30 good sized clown loaches in the 220g with them, but once they had the tank to themselves they would spawn on a fairly regular basis.

If you want to try keeping festae as part of a community then I'd say invest in a bigger tank and grow them out with a bunch of other fish to improve the chances of it working.

 

[Dispatch273]

Thank you guys for all of your input. I think I'm going to wait on a festae community until I can get a larger tank. In the future I will try a festea/geo combo. I will definitely grow out a group of them together to hopefully minimize aggression as they get older. Can't wait! Thanks again