what can i keep with cichlids?

[thesoul2008]

i am about to put 3 female and 2 male peacock cichlids in a 55G tank
i will eventually get more females i know i need another 2!!

i am wondering what can i put in there with them that wont stress them out or they wont eat lol.

leave some ideas you have tried and what will and wont work i dont mind what fish they are im just looking for ideas of what i can put in there.

i may even leave it as a sole cichlid tank yet not to sure......

oh yeah and maybe some ideas of something that will help clean the tank e.g. alge eaters maybe something like:

Oto cat, Golden otocinclus, Dwarf Sucker Mouth

im looking forward to seeing what people come up with....

i think we will even get a few arguments out of this :)

[Lupin]

I'm sorry but the otocinclus cats are not compatible with the peacocks. I thought you were supposed to get rid of the cichlids when you made another topic. No fish is ever needed to clean up the algae, snails, etc.

[SchizotypalVamp]

I have to say I think there is going to be a consensus on the otos.

[thesoul2008]

ok ignore the otos then any other fish you know of that will go in a cichlid tank?

[Lupin]

I will not suggest catfishes to eat the algae, etc. Algae can't be that bad that you want them totally out of the tank. Algae is a food source for most fish and even their resulting fry. As long as rampant growth is avoided, I see no reason to resort to other fish to clean up the algae.

Thesoul, I need clarifications here because I am confused. How many 55g tanks do you have? 1 or 2?

[thesoul2008]

sorry i have 2 tanks, the second tank is NEARLY finished just waiting on the heater to get here.
so the fish i have in my signature are ALL in 1 tank at the moment but in the next 2 or 3 days the cichlids will be in the tank all by themselves and i am just wondering what i can put in with them.

sorry if i didnt explain myself very well

i am also getting 2 more female peacocks the day my tank is ready so there will be 3 females and 2 males in the tank.....

so all up 5 peacock cichlids in the one tank so what fish can i put in with them.... just any fish i just want some ideas...

[Lupin]

Hmmm..Synodontis will be your best bet for the cichlid tank. If the other tank is a community, otos can stay there. Make a list of what fish you like and we'll sort them out for you.

[Coler]

synodontis multipunctatus will work - try one or three of them.

some people succeed with a bristlenose plec, some however have had one eyed plecs as a result.

Otherwise you are best to keep rift lake cichlids with rift lake cichlids.

[Brian Bivens]

I keep synodontis eupteras, which are pretty cool. You could also get a few Yellow labs. They have similar temperment to the Aulonocara

[thesoul2008]

synodontis multipunctatus would be GREAT if they were not worth so much

[thesoul2008]

I keep synodontis eupteras, which are pretty cool. You could also get a few Yellow labs. They have similar temperment to the Aulonocara

i thought yellow labs where quite a bit smaller than peacocks.
Wont my peacocks drive them crazy???

[thesoul2008]

ok this is what i have come up with so far how do you think this will go?

i am also still looking for more fish for tank 2 any more suggestions?



TANK 1



Plants



1 x Mayaca Bunch
1 x Pogostemon Stellata Bunch
1 x Mauve Stricta Bunch
1 x Magenta Bunch
1 x Cardamine lyrata Bunch
1 x Curly Ivy Bunch
1 x Gold Pennywort Bunch
1 x Giant Cardamine Bunch
1 x Dwarf Green Rush Bunch
1 x Pisces Hygrophila Terracotta
1 x Lobelia Cardinalis Terracotta Potted
1 x Blue Stricta Terracotta
1 x Broad Leaf Green Wendtii Terracotta



Fish



5 Kuhli (Coolie) Loaches - Acanthophthalmus kuhlii
Ghost shrimps
Zebra Danios
Neon Tetras
Golden otocinclus, Dwarf Sucker Mouth
Dwarf Gouramis
Guppies
Snails
CAE’s

Tank 2



Fish

3 male peacock cichlids
2 female peacock cichlids
3 yellow labs

I am hoping that the shrimp and guppies bread like mad in my other tank so I am able to feed these guys live food.

[Coler]

I wouldn't know much about your tank 1 ideas.

On tank 2, a couple things.

Peacocks and Labs are not carniverous and won't eat your guppies (they might snack on some fry but they won't take feeder fish).

If you're keeping a mix gender tank of rift lake fish, you want to increase your gender ratio to 2 or 3 females for each male, or your 2 females will be harassed, possibly to death.

So, I would personally skip the female peacocks and do all male, keeping no more than one male of each of about 10 species. The females are just too drab for me.

That said, you are where you are. I'm presuming your females are the same species as the males, so add a couple more females to keep the lads sane.

I would then add 3 (1 male, 2 female) Pseudotropheus Acei 'Ngara' and 3 (1 male, 2 female) Iodotropheus Sperengae.

And say 3 synodontis multipunctatus or something like that, and you'd be stocked.

Another option would be to pick 2 other species of peacocks that you like, and have 1 male and 2 females of each, plus another 2 females of the kind you already have.

[thesoul2008]

ok thanks.
i cannot get any fish i want where i am (the middle of Australia population 15,000) i have to order them from www.livefish.com.au and i did actually ask for 4 females and 1 males but they sent me 3 males and a 2 female hence the over male population!!! so i am going to try again for 2 females this time and maybe try get to 1 male yellow lab and 2 females if thats what they send me!! and hopefully i can get them breading and sell them to the pet shop here as all they sell is goldfish, guppies and neon tetras...
maybe if i can get some nice looking fish and give them to him cheap i can get some more people around here with better fish..
maybe even eventually open my own LFS see what happens from here!!

at the moment the peacocks are in with guppies and they are eating all you young they are producing and not eating anything i am giving them so i thought well go with the flow ill just bread the guppies and keep feeding them the offspring and to mix it up i have read on the internet they love shrimp so i thought i would give them a go aswell!!

[Hooked Newbie]

Ok, I'm backwards from Coler... no ideas about tank 2, but for tank 1...

I'd forget about the ghost shrimp and snails with any loaches (even kuhlis) in the tank unless you don't mind losing the inverts. And CAEs will eventually dominate and kill whatever they choose to.

[thesoul2008]

thanks newbie i have only recently found out they were cae's and everyone has told me to get rid of them so i think i might soon i have only recently noticed the biggest one ic chasing everything around the tank so i will have to get rid of them i was hoping to have shrimp to bread for the cichlids so you are saying the loaches will eat them right?

[Lupin]

Fish



5 Kuhli (Coolie) Loaches - Acanthophthalmus kuhlii
Ghost shrimps
Zebra Danios
Neon Tetras
Golden otocinclus, Dwarf Sucker Mouth
Dwarf Gouramis
Guppies
Snails
CAE’s
Ditch the CAE's and get the Crossocheilus siamensis. The term Acanthophthalmus is outdated and is now officially Pangio.

[Lupin]

Ok, I'm backwards from Coler... no ideas about tank 2, but for tank 1...

I'd forget about the ghost shrimp and snails with any loaches (even kuhlis) in the tank unless you don't mind losing the inverts. And CAEs will eventually dominate and kill whatever they choose to.


thanks newbie i have only recently found out they were cae's and everyone has told me to get rid of them so i think i might soon i have only recently noticed the biggest one ic chasing everything around the tank so i will have to get rid of them i was hoping to have shrimp to bread for the cichlids so you are saying the loaches will eat them right?
Kuhlis should be fine actually. I've never seen them even eating my newly hatched Pomacea canaliculata before I moved my canas after damaging my plants too heavily. I underestimated my canas.:lipssealedsmilie:

[Brian Bivens]

sometimes I step back from my technical understanding of the words on this website, and read what people write, and it just looks so funny lol. Fish talk is extremely dorky!

[thesoul2008]

hahahahahaha SO true SO true

[thesoul2008]

what about Apistogramma cacatuoides

[Lupin]

what about Apistogramma cacatuoides


A trio should be fine.