Starting to lean toward single fish tank unless someone would maybe have insight for developing a tank to include 2 or 3 different species of the fish we would like to have.
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- Thread starter badassissimo
- Start date
i think your number one choices are fine you just need to think about a few things. cichlids can be aggressive. so if you end up with a super aggressive one it will be better to spread out the beatings to more fish rather than one. i think the main issue is having enough hiding spaces and keeping the water clear. if you want to use the inch/ gallon rule for how much fish. and i do mean much fish, remember that it is not and inch by length/ gallon. it should be a volume to volume comparison so it would be cubic inches of fish/ gallons. you can go a little more if you want but just keep up with that water. honestly i don't think a fire eel would be the best in that tank i don't think it is big enough. fire eels can get really long, up to 3 ft, but that also takes a bit of time. i've had a texas and a paratalapia in the same tank with some others and it worked out fine.
Thank you! I was hoping that by having the clown loaches introduced first and growing them out, the cichlids would be somewhat less aggressive if I introduced them at small sizes afterward.
+1 Hiding places - rocks, driftwood, fake plants
+1 water clearity. Before I add the first fish, I'm going to have a sump up and running. I 'm hoping to not only keep the water clear but also prevent heater burns/damage as well as turn over water often enough and through enough filtration to keep the stress down while it looks pretty.
I would definitely want to move the fire eel before the 3 ft size. I just don't know if I could get by with keeping it with aggressive cichlids. Seen it in videos but haven't tried it.
+1 Hiding places - rocks, driftwood, fake plants
+1 water clearity. Before I add the first fish, I'm going to have a sump up and running. I 'm hoping to not only keep the water clear but also prevent heater burns/damage as well as turn over water often enough and through enough filtration to keep the stress down while it looks pretty.
I would definitely want to move the fire eel before the 3 ft size. I just don't know if I could get by with keeping it with aggressive cichlids. Seen it in videos but haven't tried it.
i have seen them in with cichilds before but never had experience. I would imagine if the eel is a bit bigger the cichilds would leave it alone but i am just guessing. but if you did have the eel with the cichilds you might need to spot feed the eel but once agian just a guess.
The bleerki and texas will not get along . I have tried that combo and it ended up nothing but near deaths.
Went by fish gallery the other day and saw a Bleekeri in a hospital tank. I think I recall it housed with another bleekeri in the big wall community tank they have. I'm treating this as evidence that the bleekeri has to be kept with no other bleekeri since that tank is quite large and I doubt the other cichlids were aggressive enough to be the candidate.
