Medium size ca sa cichlid ideas?

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Red618

Red618

Black Skirt Tetra
MFK Member
Jun 8, 2016
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Hello all I have a 120 up and running with a female salvini about 5 inches, female jd 7 inches and 4 firemouths ranging from 3 inches to 5. Just wondering if there is any medium size cichlid that would do well in this setup. The salvini and jd are calm and passive. However 2 of my firemouths looking to be trying to pair up. Also have a school of tiger barbs. Any help in pointing me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
 
Ok you will probably need to find something that can stick up for itself so I think a convict or two.
 
A male sajica
Mine is beautiful in colors, holds his own, and a great attitude
 
I am just not a fan of cons to be honest. I did look at the t bars the males do looks amazing. I was also thinking a acara. Just didn't know if I was missing some with enough attitude to hold their own.
 
If it were me, I wouldn't add any more cichlids, I'd add some dither types like some of the live bearers that come from similar spots in Central America. They would spend time nearer to the surface, and not encroach on the cichlid territories. They would also occasionally drop fry that would be good snacks for the cichlids.
My preference would be either some of the wild type large swordtails or mollies.

above Xiphorus sp, below Poecilia sp sailfin
and below a video of JDs and other cichlids in their natural habitat with live bearers
Eden2
 
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That video was amazing, I really need to work on my aquascaping now. I have a large school of tiger barbs how many sword tails would you think? You bring up a good point on leaving the number of cichlids as is. It is nice that they each have their own cave and cross paths but not look over crowded.
 
When I added swordtails I believe it was about 6 or 8, but they would constantly drop fry, so after a while I'd separate out pregnant females, and ended up with a constant population of @ 15 as dithers give or take.
I always like to add the wild type swords or mollies with subdued colors so they wouldn't distract from the cichlids.
I also don't like using tiger barbs with new work cichlids, besides being a distraction, way to nippy, and being Asian, to me, just looks off in a display tank.
I have used rosey barbs in none display tanks, because they are less nippy, and because they are endemic to China, so worked well as dithers to calm cool water cichlids.
 
duanes duanes I recently went snorkeling in a cenote just like that in the mayan riviera, although I forget the name of it. Did the one in the video have a small zipline going into it? Hundreds of beautiful jack dempseys and thousands of assorted livebearers, really an amazing experience and inspired me to keep mollies in my tanks.
OP, I'd second his advice to add some dithers, that is a solid cichlid count for the tank.
 
duanes said:
Cristalino has a zip line, and was full of JDs and live bearers, the 1st time.
The 2nd time was after a rain, and on a Saturday, so full of tourists diving and splashing that time, so the JDs remained mostly hidden.
Cristalino
Click to expand...

I'm still trying to find the name of it, but the cenote in this video is the same one that I went snorkeling at. When I went, we hired a private driver and myself and two other people were the only ones there. There were literally thousands of livebearers and huge schools of jack dempseys, easily hundreds of them. They would wait until I was a few feet away to dart off, and if I drifted without moving they would come right up to me. There is some underwater cichlid footage at the end of this video.
 
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