New to this forum but I have had fish for the past couple years in small tanks , about 5months ago I set a 90 gallon up and my current stock is a jack Dempsey , Vieja Argentea , and I just got a fire mouth this week , both the jack and argentea are between 5 and6 inches the fire mouth is smaller than them and the argentea picks on him a bit especially when feeding the firemouth has barley eatin cause he keeps getting chased away I was thinking about going back to my lfs and picking up another firemouth would this be a good idea and is my 90 too small for that many fish?
New to the forums need some help with my current stock
- Thread starter Nd90
- Start date
The problem will continue to get worse with the argentea in there. They can be some of the meaner viejas out there and will get worse with age, especially if it's a male. Either get a bigger tank or decide whether you want the argentea long term or whether you would rather have more fish in your 90.
firemouths in my experience aren't mean enough to hang with and argentea which by the way are one of my favourites, i would ditch the firemouth and go with salvinis of cons in my opinion, if your stuck on firmouths try some target fish like danios, silver dollars or tinfoil barbs
Firemouths can be nasty little bugers it really depends on the tankmates and size sound sto me like your fm is smaller, if you like firemouths then maybe you can get a seperate tank firemouths get to only about 5-6" aren't really good to have them with bigger cichlids. Maybe you can get a divider or a separate tank abiut 25g for your 1 firemouth. But you can take it back to a local pet store and ,aybe get some cash buy another cichlid who can defend its self.. **cough cough* jaguar, green terror,..etc
Because your argentea and JD have grown together in the tank, they own it together.
I doubt that they will allow any other cichlid to live in it, especially one as passive as a firemouth, and compared to argentea they are meek (sorry for the pun). Argentea are extremely territorial, and known to be killers. I've had alpha male argentea stress out and corner fish in my 150 gal tank, once it reached 7" or 8", including larger dovii and managuense.
I doubt that they will allow any other cichlid to live in it, especially one as passive as a firemouth, and compared to argentea they are meek (sorry for the pun). Argentea are extremely territorial, and known to be killers. I've had alpha male argentea stress out and corner fish in my 150 gal tank, once it reached 7" or 8", including larger dovii and managuense.
i got firemouth with calm american cichlid and picked mid size/temper with severum and blood parrots etc
it wouldnt get better with larger and more aggresive fish especially vieja which can grow up to 21'' twice as much as firemouth
it wouldnt get better with larger and more aggresive fish especially vieja which can grow up to 21'' twice as much as firemouth
Wow a 21" argentea, that would be awesome. Bigger tank didn't help with my arg. Even in the 450g he would chase all over the entire tank. Would only do it with certain fish, then one day he snapped and started chasing the arowana so he had to go.
The argentea has def changed with the addition of the fire mouth my Jd could really care less he will Evan let the fm into his cave as long as no one bothers him he is fine but the argentea on the other hand doesn't stop chasing the fm around and all it wants to do is eat non stop. The fire mouth ain't going to work out and I guess it's only going to be be the 2 in the tank I don't think I will be able to put anything else In it . I hope that once these guys get bigger my Jd isn't a issue with the argentea