Geos and Rainbows with guppies?

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Geos will eat the small fish. I tried adding 50 cardinal tetras with my geo sveni one time and they ate them all in a few days
 
Duanes: i just saw the photo you posted (I was away from good internet).
That is a beautiful fish, is it one of yours?
But I see your point, even such a small fish would easily fit a guppy in its mouth.

I wish I could get a 100+g tank, but I just can't afford that.

Is there something colorful and interesting that COULD go with guppies? Even with the MANY guppies in there, they all bunch up around the top looking for food, so the rest of the tank looks empty.

Look into apistosgramma species like cacuatoides or Agassizii or Borellii, etc or some of the rams...they come in many colors: German blue ram, electric blue ram, gold ram, balloon ram. They are more suitable
 
Altums85: i had always heard they were peaceful, but looking at the comments here, they seem more opportunistic than peaceful.

Pheeflow: I'll look into the rams and apistos for sure! A. Cacuatoides has colors like some of my male guppies.
Do you think I could breed the apistos or rams im the ssme tank? Or would they get territorial?
 
Duanes: i just saw the photo you posted (I was away from good internet).
That is a beautiful fish, is it one of yours?
But I see your point, even such a small fish would easily fit a guppy in its mouth.

I wish I could get a 100+g tank, but I just can't afford that.

Is there something colorful and interesting that COULD go with guppies? Even with the MANY guppies in there, they all bunch up around the top looking for food, so the rest of the tank looks empty.
Yes the one in the pic was mine, Gymnogeophagus is a related genus from the southern part of South America, where there are seasonal winters, surface waters can get a thin sheet of ice, and a thin dusting of snow is possible.
Before I realized this, I tried to keep Gymnos at year round tropical temps, and they didn't do well, fungal diseases seemed to be more frequent than they should have been, and they didn't show those great colors. Once I realized the importance of a slight cool down they did much better, and looked their best.
These Gymnos are, as you noted smaller cichlids than their tropical cousins, and are able live in tanks as small as 60 gallons, although in such a tank, I doubt I'd trust them with guppies.
Here is the same Gymno as from my other photo, in tank.
1600256637770.png
they are mouthbrooders, below a slightly more drab colored female, tending fry
1600256829654.png
 
Duanes: I hadn't even heard of Gymnos before this last week. Definitely on my bucket list now!
But like you said they wouldn't work with my guppies, at least not in such a small tank, so I'll have to wait and try to get a bigger tank that I can keep 5 or 10 in.
 
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