Question about female vs male festae (possible tankmates)

[philipraposo1982]

Hi MFKs,

My festae which I thought was a male is looking more and more female as he/she is aging. Its still not 100% clear either way but the more i see the fish the more i see female traits coming through.

My original plan was keep a solo male as a wet pet. I know males are not very good with any tank mates which is why I was raising it solo. I hate witnessing any aggression between fish in my tanks.

Seeing how this fish is likely going to be female and stay much smaller (max 12"-14") I was wondering about possible tank makes when i get the forever tank. Which is going to be either a 6' x 2' x 2' or a 8' x 2' x 2'

Are females just as nasty as males? will they tolerate anything else in the tank? Will she lose some of her interactive personality if i add tank mates?

If I do attempt any tank mates I will have a spare 75g and 90g to separate fish if anything happens.

Suggestions? Thoughts?

Thanks

 

[BIG-G]

My experience has been it depends on the individual fish personalities.
I kept a community with Jack Dempsey, Midas and jaguar in with mine until they paired.
Once that happened I removed everything but the pair.
I know with mine once they hit 12 or 13 inches I could put small fish in with them and they just ignored them for the most part.
The male ended up being just under 15 and the female just under 14.

 

[RD.]

Like most comm set ups, how things play out are often a roll of the dice, mostly dependent on the personality of the fish being mixed.

 

[duanes]

I remember seeing your post questioning gender from a few days back, and understand your confusion.
The dorsal area is looking very feminine.
I have kept some females in community cichlid tanks without issues, and others not, I agree with the others its a roll of the dice.
Sometimes if its just crowded enough it works, in the same manner as an African community. But with new world cichlids it sometimes comes down to contrasting colors, mouth and body shapes. If species aretoo similar there appears to be competition issues, If they differ and are far enough apart in color, body, and mouth shape a non-competition sort of detente may come into play.
Here are some combination I had, some worked long term, some did not. I find if festae feel intimidated, the result is a weakened immune system, with high disease susceptibility.


couple females

 

[Gourami Swami]

I would say in those tank sizes you could definitely keep a female festae with some other cichlids, but of course there are no guarantees, and a cichlid community with no aggression issues at some point or another, is pretty much unheard of. Every CA/SA community tank you see online, I bet you either has aggression going on that you don't see in the pics/videos, or there were issues in the past and fish were shuffled around until they behaved.

I think crenicichla would be a good genus to look into as far as cichlid tankmates. Or any SA cichlid that doesn't look too similar, and is pretty tough. Non-cichlid tankmates like some large pinktail chalceus or maybe flagtail prochilodus, and some plecos, would be good options as well.

 

[philipraposo1982]

Well I was thinking of going with some none cichlid fish. I really don't want to to lose the wetpet feel though. So I don't know what I will end up doing but for now I am still going to keep my festae solo till closer to 12".

 

[Serpentine]

I have successfully kept female festae with a male Red Texas cichlid, other female festae and several H. bimaculatus jewel cichlids. They bit my Pictus catfish in half (butt first so they wouldn't get stung) and eventually were too aggressive even for a large, heavily armored royal plecostemus. To be fair though, the Red Texas was usually the instigator of violence against the pleco.

ETA: I don't think you would lose the wet pet relationship with a few jewel cichlids in there. They'll be tank mates but they won't be friends.