Flowerhorn Compatability

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W

woofy

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
May 2, 2007
5,341
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Miami
i posted this inthe wrong place but no answers and they still havent moved it so:

Ive been wanting a flowerhorn baby i saw a few times for the longest time. right now its small so its hard to say what it will grow into, but iv always wanted to grow one out. Hubby says they are aggressive, but not much info past that. What can i keep it with while its small? and at what size will it get tooo agrressive? what to keep it with when its adult?

any info would help as i have none. Dont worry about tank size anything can be arranged in this house. :headbang2:headbang2:headbang2
 
I have a 1.5" FH in a 30gal growout with a 3.5" oscar. I put a divider in when I added the oscar last weekend. The FH was small enough to get around the divider and the 2 were buddies right away so I took out the divider. 3 days later I had to put the divider in because the 1.5" fh was harressing the crap out of the 3.5" oscar. Granted this particular oscar is an extreme sissy but still, body mass wise he is 4 times the FH's size. I'm too new to Fh's to give any advice but read the stickies at the top, there is some good info in there. They seem to do best on there own, however others have kept them in community tanks.
 
Usually depends on fish. But most/majority are agressive only to get worse as they grow. You can cohab them with other cichlids/oddballs like arowana, etc or should I say try to. It's not a given that your FH will be a bully he could get bullied if he's small and there are other aggressors. But it's pretty much a try it and see situtation. I would have a divider ready always.

Giving us your thoughts of what you want to keep it with will let someone tell you if it's possible to keep it with what you want.
 
well the original idea was to keep one in a huge tank with tankmates or alone in a max size tank just for him. I wouldnt mind either. I wouldnt mind an oscar, maybe a polypterus, midas, managuense? any of these work? how are they in temperment compared to loiselli and salvini? can they go together? so even if raised together they will still be butts?

im very flexible with suggestions as i can pretty much accomadate most, short of someone teling me to fill the extra room with water and seal it :D
 
well woofy i think your best bet is keeping them with parrots. for some reason in my own experiences is flowerhorns tend to accept the parrots better, and more quickly.

i have noticed flowerhorns become more aggressive as soon as the flowerhorn is roughly the same size or larger then its tankmate cichlids. even if the flowerhorn can stiffen itself with fins as much as possible to obtain a large size. that flowerhorn will attack fish that are close in size.

are you still working at the your LFS?

if so i would try to get a couple parrots and try those as tankmates. being as you work at the store maybe they will let you get the parrots at a discount.

i cannot guarantee that the flowerhorn will live happy with tankmates. i just thought i'd share with you my experiences and such.
 
for me I have no luck keeping other fish with fry because they I'll each other a well as anything in the tank with it, try experimenting a little
 
Unless you're going for a very big tank with alot of mixed cichlids I wouldn't go with Jag cichlid or midas for tank mates. Super agressive cichlids usually don't work together unless there's alot of them. And have to remember that most normal FH strains are largely Trimac/Midas based fish so they pack that much aggression.

Poly, oscars all could work but you'll need to keep an eye out for aggression. Parrots could work. You seem to be very open to accomidation a FH anyway you can. I say go for it, try to mix it with what you like and see how it works.
 
The Oscars need to be consideribly larger than the FH and it will work. I had a 3.5" FH in with a 3" and 3.5" Oscar and he broke through the divider and killed the smaller oscar and was in the process of killing the oscar that was the same size. I put him in with my oscars that are in t 6-7" range and he played nice with them until I got him his own tank.
 
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