I have been trying to get some info about a few cichlids

[Cakilla]

for a few fish,

umbee- heard I can expect 3/4 - 1 inch some times a little bit more per month.

Trimac - I have no clue what kind of growth rate they have, and also I was wondering if they are mellow till they reach a certain size or are they mean from birth ?

Festae - I know they are slow growers but not sure how slow they really are, and about what size do they tend to get robust...

Loisellie (sp?) I really know nothing about this fish other then I think they are very gorgeous fish and they are aggressive.

Honduras Jag , I seen they was available a while back from rapps but will there be any more of them available ?

Now then IF you had to choose from these 5 species of fish what species would you choose and would you have any tank mates for them


I am basically trying to get ideas to stock my 360 gallon tank - 100 x 30 x 29
it IS going to be set up in january and it will have to cycle cause I don't have enough filters with BB to seed it good enough so I am thinking it might tank a month - month and a half before I put fish in it .

I am going to make 2 DIY wet dry and going to have 2 seperate sumps and plus going to use a FX5 to polish the water and thinking about using a ac 110 also ... still unsure about it

also I will be buying what ever species as babies and growing them out in some of my smaller tanks just until they start to get some size on them and because I really like to raise them up like that to really form a bond with a fish and plus its cheaper , which is good also so it leaves more money to spend on other fish


I was going to put cichla in the tank ... who knows I still might ...

If you can offer up sugestions to what you would put in the tank any species but keep in mind the fish will have to be able to spend at least 2 years of its life in the 360 with out being upgraded untill the 2 years is up ....

Thanks for taking the time to read all my ramblings and I am looking forward to hearing from everyone

 

[Gruff Master]

My Festae colored up and grew faster once they his 4-4.5". Mine hated any and everything in their tank. I couldn't keep any tankmates with them, but there are many people who have great success with keeping Festae with other cichlids. Out of all the cichlids that you listed I believe that the Festae will grow the slowest. In a 360gal your stock should be more forgiving. You could probably pull off two breeding pairs of cichlids, with caution though. I really like Trimacs but I haven't owned any yet. Hopefully, that will change soon. I heard that it is very hard to keep them with tankmates at all. They start off ok as juveniles but once they mature they turn very aggressive. Again, some people can get aggressive cichlids to play nice with others. You could be one to do it, especially with such a large tank. I think that Aquamojo has fry of the Honduras Jags too. if you stock the right mix and numbers, you should be able to keep your stock in a 360gal for life.

 

[whopjag]

I know my Trimacs are probably 3.5" right now and they are very agressive I had 4 but they just killed one so I hae 3 left a the biggest one of them all is bullying the entire tank!!

 

[jgentry]

Umbee's probably 3/4" per month until they get around 8-10"

Trimacs are little bastards from day one

Festae toughen up a bit around 8" or so

Loisellie- One of the less aggressive parachromis, but still a parachromis so they will be aggressive

Honduras Jag -Fry are available pretty often if you know were to look. I can get you some if you can't find them from one of the vendors



Why choose, keep all of them but the umbee's. Other then adult males there aggression is highly over rated in my opinion. Doubtful you could grow them up with trimacs and they would live. Even if they did an adult male umbee could cause problems down the road. Replace the umbee with something esle nice looking like an RTM pair and you will be in good shape.

 

[Freshwaterpredators]

I say get all of them small and Let time tell. The growth rate depends on a few variables. Like water quality/ changes and how frequently, food, temperature and tankmates. Higher temps will boost metabolism speeding growth which then will require more WC.I've had festae grow from 1.5-8" in 8 months then had some that went from 3-8" .in a year. Good luck and should make for an active and very interesting tank to watch for a while

 

[DanG13]

Umbee's probably 3/4" per month until they get around 8-10"

Trimacs are little bastards from day one

Festae toughen up a bit around 8" or so

Loisellie- One of the less aggressive parachromis, but still a parachromis so they will be aggressive

Honduras Jag -Fry are available pretty often if you know were to look. I can get you some if you can't find them from one of the vendors



Why choose, keep all of them but the umbee's. Other then adult males there aggression is highly over rated in my opinion. Doubtful you could grow them up with trimacs and they would live. Even if they did an adult male umbee could cause problems down the road. Replace the umbee with something esle nice looking like an RTM pair and you will be in good shape.

Thats a nice list of fish.

 

[Cakilla]

Thanks everyone I think I am going to go with all but the umbee and trimac, still going to end up getting some of those but I will have seperate tanks for those ...

I was thinking maybe getting a couple Lyonsi to replace the trimac
and possibly 2 oscars to take the place of the umbee and getting a pair of RTM instead of festae just to try and keep the 360 a semi peaceful community ...
O I will still end up with umbee, festae and trimacs but I think it would be best if I kept them in their own tanks with some dithers

and wanted to say TY to Jgentry I will appreciate the hook up if I can't find any honduars jags from the vendors

It's a little off topic a bit but I wanted to share that I bought 2 JD's awhile back thinking they was male and a female but in time I found out I was wrong and got 2 males and they got to Fighting so I seperated them and one of them has really Grown like crazy and his colors are awesome so I started looking for him a mate and The only Blue female jd I found was really not looking to healthy and the next day the LFS gave me a call because they got in some JD's so I went down and I found a beautiful female Golden JD that is a bit over 3 inches long and wasn't sure if they would get along the male is about 7 inches so I put a devider up in the males 55 and put a flat rock on the females side and so I watched them for awhile and I woke up and the Male JD was on the females side .. the devider is still there and they are both in breeding dress and of all things the male has been non stop building a nest all day today ( so i removed the devider but put some caves that she can fit into but he can't .. just in case ) and I was looking at the female and her tummy has got a "pooch" to it sooo I am thinking They are going to be breeding soon!!! if they do it will be my first set of babies since I got back into fish keeping and its really exciting!! so I had to share