severums with other cichlids

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T

thezombiesarecoming

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 19, 2010
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clearwater, bc
hi. i posted this already in the "general" forum because i'm new to this site and apparently don't have a clue what i'm doing... (i didn't realize there was a forum dedicated to cichlid issues). so here's my questions again:

i have my green and gold severums in a 55 gal community tank. the green i've had for probably going on 3 or 4 years now and he's probably about 6-8". the gold i recently bought and is only maybe 2-3". i just obtained a new 93 gal tank and am debating what to put in there. i have a cichlid tank in addition to my community tank and my question is this: can my severums co-exist with the cichlids? the cichlids i have are auratus, yellow lab, red zebra, and convict. (i'm new to having cichlids. i just got the majority of these fish from someone who was selling them, and i got the red zebra and convict for free. but now i've read that maybe some of these shouldn't be put together?) thanks!
 
The severum is a cichlid also. I would think they could live together as long as you provide them with hiding places but I have never kept old world and new world cichlids in the same tank. You should probably keep the africans together and convict with the severums
 
First off welcome to MFK. There is a lot to learn in this site and every nook and cranny contains more info. On to your questions. From my experiance I have seen severums exist with many different types of fish for me personally I am a geographic person and never mix fish from two different continents. I would say good tank mates are fishes from the geophagus family and there are a few smaller pikes that can go well with them as well. There are also festivums and keyholes and these might work as well. All of this is based on any perticular fishes aggresion level as I have kept really nasty severums that had to be kept alone and I have had some that I was able to keep with bleeding heart tetras. So really its based on the fish you have and there temperment.

As far as the other fish you have go; I personally would seperate them according to there geographic region. Of course this is only my opinion. Good luck no matter what you choose to do.
 
thanks everyone for the info.

fish_n_vw: both the severums seem to be pretty mild mannered. right now i have them with a couple angels, a couple rainbow fish, a snowflake eel, some varieties of catfish, a pleco, a couple gouramis and a bolivian ram and everyone is getting along swell. of course, i can't put anything small in there because it gets inhaled by big ol' green, but i've come to accept that... (this is my second green severum. the first i lost in a move :( but before i did i lost a number of small fish before i realized what was occuring)

but that was my worry: their being so seemingly mild mannered. i do have a larger red zebra from my cichlid tank that i had to essentially quarantine because he got so aggressive that he killed a couple fish and scared the bejeezus out of the others. he's currently biding his time with an ornate bichir. they at least get along... i've read that cichlids in general are quite agressive and so i wasn't sure if the severums being typically "semi-agressive" would survive with them.
 
If you are planning on mixing your africans with your sevrums I would have to say its not the best of ideas. The africans do best in harder water and the sevs best in softer. It sounds like you have a pretty well set up tank there (if I put my personal taste to the side). A lot of my friends go with a "if its not broke don't fix it" type of attitude for this sort of thing. But like I said good luck no matter what path you decide to travel.
 
Out of ignorance I have a 55g with 1 Severum, 1 Bumblebee Cichlid, 2 Jewel Cichlids, and 1 firemouth. All co-exist very well. Tho I am in the works of splitting up the different geo's into specific tanks.

250g with Sev's, Green Terrors and JDs
75g Blood Parrots, Fire Mouths
75g Africian Lake Cichlids
55g Jewel Cichlids and other Amazons

Sorry didn't mean to hijack.

Moral of the story, they live well together, but keeping water right for all can be challenging as was stated they need diferent PH, soft/hard water.. etc

Good Luck,

Bear
 
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