Multispinosa/Zebrina with discus and angels?

illumnae

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I've got another question. Would I be able to keep any sort of dither schooling fish in the tank? Currently building my stock list and the confirmed additions are discus, altums, multispinosa pikes and a few plecos (L95, L273, LDA105 and a couple more Pseudacanthicus sp.). Would like to add some eartheaters and a large school of dithers but I wouldn't want them to get eaten. I considered some silver dollar types but with the discus they would look too similar, and leporinus usually turn aggressive. Would larger tetras like diamond tetras avoid getting decimated by the pikes? Any other tetras grow large enough other than diamonds?

Edit: Final size of the tank is 7 x 3 x 4 ft, so about 600 gallons not including the sump
 

duanes

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Although I have never kept Crenicichla with discus, I have with Geophagines, and other high bodied cichlids, and as long as the tank has enough space, as your 600 will have, I have never seen any noticeable aggression, as long as the other cichlids weren't bite size.



 
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kno4te

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mrrobxc mrrobxc may have some input on this.
 
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mrrobxc

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I think the less competition for food your discus have the better. That said, with your tank being so large, you should be good as long as you feed enough for all to eat sufficiently.

The pikes eliminate the possibility of a lot of dithers. Larger growing characins from the Boulengerella, Chalceus, Ctenolucius, and Triportheus are good top water idea. Hemiodus, Pseudanos, tetragonopterus, and Acestrorhynchus are all good ideas for mid water. Just ensure they are large enough to escape predation by the pikes when you acquire them.
 
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illumnae

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Thanks everyone! Things are getting exciting as finally plans that were delayed by the covid19 situation are taking shape! I got news that my aquadecor background and logs/rocks are being completed today so I hope for pictures soon and that shipping won't be delayed. Tank will likely be built on site sometime in September as my house will start tiling works on Monday.

Looks like nothing particularly pretty would work as a nice shoaling fish. I was hoping for a large school of 500-1000 colorful tetras to bring life and colour to the tank (and keep the wife happy)
 
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Goggy

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Jzx going to be bringing multispinosa in? Or are you buying that single multi that was living in their sump?

I’ve always toyed with the idea of picking a very small tetra to be housed with pikes. The idea is maybe the tetras would be so insignificant that it wouldn’t be worth the effort for the crenicichla to hunt them down. Of course, do this at your own risk as the pikes could just go after the tetras.

But if you do decide to do this you would have to keep the crenicichla well fed. Also introduce the pikes after the tetras. You wouldn’t want to introduce little fish into the aquarium last; since fish often associate things that enter the surface of the aquarium as food.

I have also heard that ratio is important for this to work, the bigger the difference in size, the higher chance this has to work.

my 14” atabapo pair has been great with a school of 3 inch silver dollars. But I have a lot of trust in my guys since they leave scalare angels alone.
 

illumnae

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No shipments of multispinosa planned byt I've asked them to order some in for me whenever they next see it on the stock lists. Gives me time to get some tetras in the tank and bulked up on size perhaps?
 

Goggy

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No shipments of multispinosa planned byt I've asked them to order some in for me whenever they next see it on the stock lists. Gives me time to get some tetras in the tank and bulked up on size perhaps?
If you want to experiment with a large shoal of small tetras you need to get very small fish as you want to have a large size gap between the tetras and the crenicichla

Of course if you were talking about the option of getting larger tetras then the time it takes for jzx to bring in multispinosa would aid in the tetras’ size development.


Larger growing characins from the Boulengerella, Chalceus, Ctenolucius, and Triportheus are good top water idea. Hemiodus, Pseudanos, tetragonopterus, and Acestrorhynchus are all good ideas for mid water.
I’d like to add to this list: moenkhausia agnesae, astyanax, psaliodon, cyphocharax, leporinus, synaptolaemus, brycon.
 

mrrobxc

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If you want to experiment with a large shoal of small tetras you need to get very small fish as you want to have a large size gap between the tetras and the crenicichla

Of course if you were talking about the option of getting larger tetras then the time it takes for jzx to bring in multispinosa would aid in the tetras’ size development.
Always wanted Agnesae but wasn’t sure if they’d be able to escape predation by pikes of this size. How big have yours gotten at full grown?


I’d like to add to this list: moenkhausia agnesae, astyanax, psaliodon, cyphocharax, leporinus, synaptolaemus, brycon.
 
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