Suggestions on ways to use the full tank without a divider

[Cichlidfever]

I have a 360 gallon tank (8'x2'x3'). I raised since babies a male and female Grammodes, and 2 Escondido, I am not sure what the sex is on the Escondido. the male Grammodes is about 8" and the female Grammodes is about 6". The Escondidos is about 7" and 5". I have separate the grammodes and the Escondidos using a divider, because the Grammodes where just to hard on the Econdidos. I have had them separated for about a month now. Since I have added the dividers, the Grammodes has been really shy and the Escondidos, I am assuming because I cut down on their tank space. Also the Male Grammodes has been much hard on the female Grammodes. The Grammodes has not been what I would call a pair yet, because they haven't produce any fry yet, but they have been raise together with other tankmakes.

IMO a divider takes beauty away from the tank, I would like to remove the divider so that I can enjoy the landscape of the tank as well as the beauty of the fish. Do you think dithers will help, if so what would be the best dithers. I was thinking perhaps a bunch of male convicts, but I am not sure if anything would work at this point. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank in advance.

 

[buddha1200]

i would try the dithers(works sometimes)

 

[qguy]

try to "divide" the tank using rocks, this way their territory will end where they see the rocks.

 

[Sarah88]

yeah try to create boundaries with the deco so that there are clear sight breaks for them to get away from each other, also the escons should be pretty easy to sex, usually female carps have black spot in their dorsal and have slimmer body while males have no black and very high/chunky body type, and yeah i would think since its only the four cichlids that dithers would help out a lot, i would do female cons though as they are much more colorful, if you like them you could also do nice big school of silver dollars or giant danios in that tank

 

[frazzlerock5]

I would definitely add dithers, and a lot of them. You have a lot of tank space to play with. I would do some large topwater fish like tinfoil barbs and some mid-sized cichlids to spread out the aggression. I know a lot of people don't like convicts because of how common they are, but they make great dithers because they can hold their own for small cichlids. Some of the other cryptoheros could work too like cutteri, sajica, etc. You could add a mid-sized parachromis sp. like RTM, friedrichstalli. You could add some vieja/paratheraps species. You have so many possibilities here with that size of a tank.

 

[steelshade]

You could add silver dollars or giant danios. Tall fake plants can be used to run the width of the tank in the middle and block line of sight from one end to the other.

 

[baldtaxguy]

You could add silver dollars or giant danios. Tall fake plants can be used to run the width of the tank in the middle and block line of sight from one end to the other.

+1 with a rock line dividing as well

 

[Cichlidfever]

I have an acrylic tank, do you think stacking to many rocks up high, will bow the tank?

 

[baldtaxguy]

I have an acrylic tank, do you think stacking to many rocks up high, will bow the tank?

Place 1/2" Plywood and foam between the stand and bottom of tank.