Teach me to Vieja

[duanes]

Agree with jaws777 and ragin cajun, about tank size. A 125 is a pretty good temporary grow out tank for most Vieja, but in the end (in my experience), it will only hold a either very compatible pair, or single individual Vieja.
There seems to be a point when the first one of a group to hit maturity, and/or alpha status, will almost overnight, can and will, take out any other, or all of the cichlids in a tank.
I was growing out a number of argentea in a 150gal, when the alpha hit 6-7" I found all others mauled and dead one morning when I walked into the fish room, the day before all seemed simpatico.

 

[jeaninel]

Love the Vieja group! I've only kept Synspillum, Argentea and Maculicauda. My Syn (my avatar) I had for 6 years and he/she was 13" when he passed. Right now I have an Argentea and a young Black Belt in with some bala sharks, a female convict, an Oscar and a Pictus cat in a 150. The Argentea is pretty laid back compared to what I've heard. It may be a female. My tank has a really good harmony right now. I guess time will tell.
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[Buphy]

No!! I'm not doing vieja in a 125, that seems more suicidal than anything I've done so far =P re-braking this down... Atm I have the JD, EBJD and bleekeri in a 55 and red severum and chocolate in a 37 (they're still super small, I'm not abusing them!). In the next week or so I'm getting a 75 and moving everyone from the 55 to the 75 so hopefully I can try taking the divider out for a few months... Though I'll be keeping it handy. Then in 3 months I should be able to pick up a 125 and everyone from the 75 moves to the 125 and everyone in the 37 moves to the 75. So... In conclusion, really can't even add dither atm but coming up I'll have more room for it.

Favorite so far... Honestly I've seen hets I really love and some I don't. Ones I've really liked have been like black and gold. Fiancé loves the synps, and assuming argenteas are the most white like I think they are, they look crisp.

 

[metsfan]

Vieja (Paraneetroplus, Paratheraps, Chuco etc) are some of my favorites, and also some of the most frustrating.
I find vegetarian cichlids (and these omnivores tend to lean toward the vegetarian side) can be very territorial, and because of this tendency, guard turf in a much more invested and ferocious way than predators if space is limited.
I've had an alpha argentea wipe out every other cichlid in a 6 ft tank, including larger Parachromis when it hit maturity.
Because of this I only keep single species tanks if the tank is 6 ft or smaller.
So I will give you the list I've kept, in order of their aggressiveness in my tanks.
For me, argentea, maculacauda, regani, and zonatus are most intolerant of themselves and any other cichlids.


Somewhere in the middle have been fenestratus, and bifasciata.

And at low levels of aggression the Chucos (intermedia, and micropthalmus)

breidhori, and synspilla.

If you lump bocourti and pearsei within the Vieja cadre, they would be for me, low end aggression type, although because of size also in need of much space.

Within 2-3yrs my pearsei out grew a 150 gal tank
I do believe its all about space, if you were to go over the 250gal size tanks, aggression ceases to become so limiting.
Most of my tanks are in the 100 to 150 gal range, so really not large enough for more than a pair or trio of 1 species to a tank.

My experience with Argentea has been much different than yours. I currently have 2 8-10 inch Argentea in a 125 with a large pair of Coatzacoalcos and a pair of Cubans and the Argentea are very passive.