Starting a 200 gallon aquarium Vieja/Peratharaps aquarium
- Thread starter bradcine
- Start date
What is your experience with keeping CA cichlids? What is your tank situation like- do you have other similarly large tanks running which you could swap fish out with?
A setup like you are asking about, a 200g with 3-5 vieja, is going to be a crapshoot at worst, very difficult to pull off at best. Vieja/paratheraps for the most part are very aggressive fish which don't tolerate each other well. A large male of species like argentea, maculicauda (to name a couple) could easily dominate that whole tank and make life miserable for the other fish. Or, you may have luck and get less aggressive individuals. But the chance that you pick up 3-5 juvenile vieja and have them grow up and live peacefully (or with minimal conflict) is slim imo. Much more likely, you will have to re-home fish and swap them around tanks until you get a mix that works, and even then a mix can turn south and need to be adjusted.
Your best bet is probably to get a whole bunch of juveniles, and weed them out to get rid of problem individuals as they grow. You may want all male or female in the end, because breeding pairs of any of the larger viejas will need this tank size to themself.
I would look at rusty wessell's setup. There's a video showing his fish house here:
These tanks in the video are all around the size of your tank, and many of them have lots of large CA cichlids in them. He has many tanks that he can move fish around to if they are killing each other. Running a CA cichlid community tank can be quite difficult if you don't have multiple tanks, because you have nowhere to put aggressors or refugees.
Another approach would be to pick your favorite vieja and get a nice single specimen, then populate with tough, smaller cichlids, which the vieja hopefully won't see as a threat. Convicts work well for this. Personally, I would go for something more like this. Different sizes of cichlids will give some variety to the livestock, you can watch the small cichlid colony breed and grow, and you will likely not have to change the stock around unless your large vieja is a real s.o.b.
Best of luck!
A setup like you are asking about, a 200g with 3-5 vieja, is going to be a crapshoot at worst, very difficult to pull off at best. Vieja/paratheraps for the most part are very aggressive fish which don't tolerate each other well. A large male of species like argentea, maculicauda (to name a couple) could easily dominate that whole tank and make life miserable for the other fish. Or, you may have luck and get less aggressive individuals. But the chance that you pick up 3-5 juvenile vieja and have them grow up and live peacefully (or with minimal conflict) is slim imo. Much more likely, you will have to re-home fish and swap them around tanks until you get a mix that works, and even then a mix can turn south and need to be adjusted.
Your best bet is probably to get a whole bunch of juveniles, and weed them out to get rid of problem individuals as they grow. You may want all male or female in the end, because breeding pairs of any of the larger viejas will need this tank size to themself.
I would look at rusty wessell's setup. There's a video showing his fish house here:
These tanks in the video are all around the size of your tank, and many of them have lots of large CA cichlids in them. He has many tanks that he can move fish around to if they are killing each other. Running a CA cichlid community tank can be quite difficult if you don't have multiple tanks, because you have nowhere to put aggressors or refugees.
Another approach would be to pick your favorite vieja and get a nice single specimen, then populate with tough, smaller cichlids, which the vieja hopefully won't see as a threat. Convicts work well for this. Personally, I would go for something more like this. Different sizes of cichlids will give some variety to the livestock, you can watch the small cichlid colony breed and grow, and you will likely not have to change the stock around unless your large vieja is a real s.o.b.
Best of luck!
Im a big fan of vieja argentea, but ive never kept them. I believe your tank would be adequate though. Everything i do know about vieja indicates you should be prepared to keep a single species pair or group though. No guarantees on whether or not they will tolerate other cichlids.
From what I hear is (Heterospilus, Synspilum, Regani, Breidhori) probably the least aggressive.. you don’t think have 3 of these would be a good idea either? I like convicts, how many would you recommend, 2?
A single vieja with a few pairs of convicts/amatitlania sounds like a nice tank to me. It is possible the vieja would attack the cons, but less likely in my opinion than other vieja. Because the vieja will not see the small fish as a threat. Agression within own genus is often the worst I have found, or with similar size + shape fish.
I haven't kept breidohri but I have not heard they are passive. Heterospilus is supposed to be the least aggressive of the genus, and I bet you could keep a group of heterospilus with some other similarly tempered CA cichlids with good chance of success. Regani and synspilum I have kept, and did not think they were particularly bad, though have heard others have different experiences with them.
If you like the heterospilus, I think that may be your best bet. Group of 5 or so with some other cichlids. I might avoid the convicts with them because the hetero's are slow growers and the more aggressive convicts might actually bully them. Unless the hetero's were larger, thoricthys or similar might be better tankmates.
Id get like 4 female convicts and 2 males and then pick 1 of whichever vieja is your favorite. Could add a few bottom dwellers and would make for a very interesting tank.
Maybe a couple heterospilus and 1 synaplium might work. Perhaps an Oscar too?