fish junkie;3447901; said:
Its all a matter of choice Rapps has some good looking temensis for sale .
The fish in Boostens avtar is awesome it is a kelberi i believe .
Just sit down and do the research theres alot of reading here and you can learn alot ,and it would be a great idea to be prepared to keep cichla before you purchase them.
Ras;3447888; said:
btw are there any special cichla i should aim to get. for me they all looks the same/ almost.
they all grow big right ?
is it true that they change coulor 3-4 times befor they are full grown ?
and again any sugestions for what i should keep with them ?
Thx Ras ps. long time since i feeled so much like a newbe.
Like fish junkie said you kind of have to do some research... There is a list long of diff kinds of cichla and they tend to look different in my opinion. Jeff Rapp's website is tangledupincichlids.com ... hold off buying those temensis because hes going to have some goodies in stock soon
...
temensis, pinima, azul (piquiti) grow the largest
where as kelberis, orinos, monoculus and ocells are smaller but still large.
I did not list ever cichla because honestly most cichla are hard to get your hands on.
Cichla's colors will morph constantly and if they aren't farm breed fish their colors will be glorious when larger.
As for tankmates, I keep cichla with just cichla but you can keep them with anything that can keep up with their growth and don't fit in their big mouths
I'll give you the low down really fast. You need a large tank, high temp (87 degrees C, you can drop the temp when they get out of the juvi stage) low ph, soft water, extremely well filter with great water quality, they need to be fed well with quality foods and you can't skimp on water changes. Most of them when small only eat live food but you can train them off of that onto pellets and prepared foods. There is only one way to get rid of that newbie feeling and it's with research.
