Will this work: 4 uarus in a 36" long tank?

[Stab]

This is my first post on MFK although many of you know me from other places on the net. I've been a member here for quite sometime but only now have decided to post...

I have a 125G tank dedicated to SA cichlid community. Until recently it held a few uarus, geos (Jrupari and Brazilensis yellow form), a severum, small chocolate cichlid, small group of festivums, and a couple of black bar silver dollars. For a few months now, I've been toying with an idea of converting it into a CA biotope to house some of the less commonly kept cichlid species. I am mainly interested in starting a petenia splendita breeding project If I proceed with this, some of the current residents will need to be "disposed of" (no, I don't mean like THAT ) I already brought geos and SDs to a LFS yesterday, and will do the same with festivums but would like to keep all other fish. So here is the dilema:
As you can see I have a lot of fish to move around. After much planning and debate I have decided that severum and chocolate can be relocated to a 55 which is currently occupied mainly by bichirs and a few other african oddballs, while uarus will go into the only other largish aquarium currently available to me -- a 65 gallon tank. The question is whether or not a standard 65 (36X18X24) with souped up filtration can support 4 uarus for life? These fish are currently a year old and 4-6" in size. They are not breeding yet. If a breeding pair is established and tensions arise, I will get rid of the remaining 2 fish. But for the sake of the argument lets assume that all 4 are of the same sex and will continue getting along wonderfully together, always schooling and stuff... Can they live comfortably in that 65 with maybe a few cory cats and a fancy pleco of some sort for clean up? If this was a 75 gallon tank, I would not even ask but a 65, beeing that its only 3 feet long has an odd shape to it. Also, if I would have seen a healthy grown up uaru before perhaps I would not ask this either... So, what does everyone think?

S.

 

[Stab]

 

[softturtle]

They are pretty big fish for that foot print. But if your "all one sex" scenario happens, I don't see why they couldn't live there for a long time if not forever. I don't have much exp. with uaru. I kept a group of babies for a few months and they were awsome. I never had any aggression problems, but then again they only got to about 3" before I let them go. They seemed to spend a lot of time floating in the middle/upper level in my tank. That leads me to beleive that the floor space is not the biggest concern for these fish.

But if it were me, I would get a bigger tank, becuase you know there is going to be a pair. Plus a bigger tank means more uaru and that means cooler looking tank and evenly distributed whoopins. Thats just me though.

 

[Jason_S]

imo a breeding pair would be much better off than 4 of the same sex. a single breeding pair will only need one territory (which could be the whole tank) as opposed to 4 single specimens trying to find their own area of the tank. I have never kept them so I don't know about their level of territorial nature but all cichlids are at least somewhat territorial and they are usually the most so with others of their own species.

if you want to keep all 4 then I'd get a bigger tank. a single pair could probably be kept in that tank though so I'd keep my fingers crossed that 2 of them pair up and then sell the other 2.