Is this unusual?

[Sprgirl17]

I have a 55-gallon aquarium. It's well established. I recently changed all of the inhabitants. I have 2 frontosas, one "blue dolphin," a compressiceps, a "labidochromis Lion's Cove Yellow", a common pleco, and one other cichlid (supposed to be dark blue with a yellow stripe on its head when full grown). All of them are between 1 1/2-2 inches. The pleco is about 5-6 inches. I am fully aware that the fronts will outgrow my aquarium and will move them when they get too large. I want to add some peacocks. Would they get along with the others? My current fish all get along great. There isn't any fighting. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

[ChilDawg]

It is very unusual. You have fish from two plus different lakes in there, as well as two Fronts that are getting along for now. The theory with Fronts is much the same as the one for Tiger Barbs: the more you have, the less one will be singled out...that will happen at some point.

I would not add anything to a "well-established" cichlid tank without taking many precautions...and they aren't worth it, IMO. The first thing you need to do is get the Fronts and the Compressiceps out. Then we can help you re-stock this tank so that it is solely a Malawian one.

[jimbo]

First off, I don’t have any experience mixing cichlids from different lakes. I guess I will never have. So I don't recommend mixing species from two different lakes. I even keep my mbunas and peacocks, which are from the same lake, in separate tanks just because of their different dietary needs. I know some people mix all kind of cichlids, even from different parts of the world and sometimes even those species get along just fine.

However, Peacocks are described as a relatively peaceful species.

Quote:
“It should be noted that the listing of a particular species as "peaceful for an African" is only a general remark, which describes the average behaviour of this particular fish. Individuals can greatly vary (as with all animal species). I personally own a male Cyrtocara moorii, which is the hyper dominant fish in my non-mbuna tank (till now) and has shown to be very aggressive at times. If you check your books you will see that this was supposed to be a relatively peaceful species - well, mine is not”

Introducing a new fish to a community will always cause some disturbance to the “established order” so I guess you’ll have to find out whether a Peacock will be “compatible” after a couple of days or weeks, or not.

Jimmy

[Sprgirl17]

I got this idea from my local fish store. They have a much larger show aquarium that is "over-stocked" with all of these fish. They are all mature and must be males (because of their bright coloration). In their tank, all of these species get along. Thanks for the advice. If it turns in to a total disaster, I'll take some of the fish back. But so far, so good...

[jimbo]

The reason they "seem" to get along is due to the over-stocked tank at your LFS.
These fish don't have a territory which means basically they don't have to defend anything.

[dcallen]

Hi,

I agree with Jimbo and ChilDawg. I think as a rule it's not a good idea to mix lakes together so I would discourage it. I am pretty conservative when it comes to fish keeping so I don't take many if any chances with my fish. I keep a male Peacock tank with the exception of one male Yellow Lab whom was the first fish in the tank. I like for everyone to get along as much as possible so I'm avoiding confrontations in the tank by taking the more conservative route with what I add to the tank. As Jimbo stated if the tank is overstocked this will cut down on the aggression level leaving the impression that they all just get along when in truth if the tank were not overstocked there would be significant problems with aggression for sure. That said good luck!

HTH