Stocking my 125 w/CA's - Thoughts?

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Batboi3000;4196483; said:
Which of these is not central american? I know the Flowerhorn is a hybrid but isn't mostly cross bred from other central american cichlids?



What kind of smaller fish do you think could hang with these bruisers? Could you give me some examples? I can think of an example. I saw a video on youtube of i believe a 135 gallon with a big texas and a midas with a few giant danios or silver dollars in it. That looked cool.
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You are correct, they are all CA with the exception of the obvious hybrid. Silver dollars would work well. Also you could try a group of female convicts. If you are going to try and put multiple large cichlids in together, definitely try and get them as juveniles.
 
well festae is actually south american if you want to get technical but aren't all the others central?
 
Sarah88;4196518; said:
well festae is actually south american if you want to get technical but aren't all the others central?
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I always forget that Festae aren't CA. Especially since they were lumped in Amphilophus for a while there.
 
Adhlc;4196528; said:
I always forget that Festae aren't CA. Especially since they were lumped in Amphilophus for a while there.
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yeah i know i didnt even know they were SA when i first got mine, just figured they were a big aggressive cichlid so lumped them with CA and then i was reading up on them and saw that and thought it was weird since when i think of SA i think of like geos and stuff but i guess its like umbees, they are SA too...
 
Adhlc;4196528; said:
I always forget that Festae aren't CA. Especially since they were lumped in Amphilophus for a while there.
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Since when are Festaes not Amph's? Man! Things change quick in this hobby. I guess in doing my research I thought they were all centrals. Maybe it is just my O.C.D. but I kind of thought it would be cool to have a tank of fish that all potentially would run into one another in their native habitat so I was trying to look at fish from around central america. I know people have caught midas and texas down in Florida. How they all got down there is another issue.

As far as the convicts, I don't know if I trust myself trying to sex them in the store and not chance having babies in the coming months. How does one sex convicts? What are the characteristic differences? I don't even know if I want convicts again, even for a dither. I was on the convict road for years so i feel like I've been there, done that, don't want to do it again.
 
Batboi3000;4196683; said:
Since when are Festaes not Amph's? Man! Things change quick in this hobby. I guess in doing my research I thought they were all centrals. Maybe it is just my O.C.D. but I kind of thought it would be cool to have a tank of fish that all potentially would run into one another in their native habitat so I was trying to look at fish from around central america. I know people have caught midas and texas down in Florida. How they all got down there is another issue.

As far as the convicts, I don't know if I trust myself trying to sex them in the store and not chance having babies in the coming months. How does one sex convicts? What are the characteristic differences? I don't even know if I want convicts again, even for a dither. I was on the convict road for years so i feel like I've been there, done that, don't want to do it again.
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Yeah they're still originally from Central America.

I completely understand where you're coming from on keeping fish from the same general area/habitat. That's how I've kept fish for the past 2 years or so, some call it OCD. ;)

Female convicts are pretty easy to spot being that they usually have a nice orange coloration on their stomach area. If you didn't want to do Cons, you could try some Cryptoheros sp. or Thorichthys sp.(provided they can hold their own against the big boys)
 
Dude I have had this combo kind of and let me say this....Even as juvies you are going to need a B.A.T!!!!! (Big Ass Tank)

I had this combo, Male RTM, 3in Red Texas, 2 3-4.5" Texas X FH, 10in Male Festae, 3in Mayan, 6in Female Green Terror, and 6"Red Devil, Red Jewel(believe it or not, nobody messes with this little guy!!! he and my female GT are friends!!) and needless to say I was saving my nickels a few weeks after and spending it on Upgrades (Multiple 125's) to house these fish. I also sold my festae(which I regret)(I acquired him for 20.00 from local LFS because they had no idea what they had ,and labeled him XL African Cichlid) so i brought him home!!!! He ended up mating with my red devil!!!!(fry did not survive!!!) I ended up taking my 6in Female Red Devil to LFS and my RTM is in separate holding tank now till I finish setting up other bigger tanks.

I am not saying it can't be done!!! But you are going to need way more tanks or going to have a Monster tank with a huge footprint.
 
cjbarth;4196756; said:
Dude I have had this combo kind of and let me say this....Even as juvies you are going to need a B.A.T!!!!! (Big Ass Tank)

I had this combo, Male RTM, 3in Red Texas, 2 3-4.5" Texas X FH, 10in Male Festae, 3in Mayan, 6in Female Green Terror, and 6"Red Devil, Red Jewel(believe it or not, nobody messes with this little guy!!! he and my female GT are friends!!) and needless to say I was saving my nickels a few weeks after and spending it on Upgrades (Multiple 125's) to house these fish. I also sold my festae(which I regret)(I acquired him for 20.00 from local LFS because they had no idea what they had ,and labeled him XL African Cichlid) so i brought him home!!!! He ended up mating with my red devil!!!!(fry did not survive!!!) I ended up taking my 6in Female Red Devil to LFS and my RTM is in separate holding tank now till I finish setting up other bigger tanks.

I am not saying it can't be done!!! But you are going to need way more tanks or going to have a Monster tank with a huge footprint.
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WOW!!! That is a decent amount of fish. What sized tank did you have them in?

Like I said in the beginning, I am not wanting to house all of these at once, but house a combination of fish out of these 5. I want experience and thoughts on what the best combination might be. I am aware even a 125 gallon isn't that big when keeping fish like this. If I could I would definitely get a bigger aquarium but that is not in the books right now. In the mean time I want to get a few of these bruisers and see how it goes. I have allready had one trial and error run in stocking this tank. This time I want things to be more permanent and thought out.

Maybe I need to even switch out a fish and bring in a different species if another would work better. I like the Trimacs too. I don't know if they are as nasty as the flowerhorns or not but I have seen them toe off with a midas so I know they can at least hold their own.

Here are a couple combinations I have been thinking of.

1. 1 Texas, 2 Midas, 2 Motags.
2. 1 Texas, 1 Flowerhorn or Trimac, 2 Midas
 
i think you will have better luck with a trimac than a flowerhorn, but even then you will need to make sure that the trimac is added last, these guys are awesome but can definitely be bruisers. also in that size of a tank you will be better off doing one male of each species, since pairs will wreak havoc and want the tank to themselves and males of same species will fight. out of those last species i would do
texas
midas
trimac
all these fish are very personable and if raised from super young will hopefully at least not beat on each other too bad. i would also do a school of like 6 silver dollars to help them spread around their aggression
 
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