What do I need to have firemouths

IMO your tank is only large enough for one pair of Firemouths, you could buy 5-6 juvies and let them form pairs themselves....keep one and return the others to the LFS. Or as you mentioned tankmates buy one really nice looking juvie firemouth and keep tankmates with it. A small shoal of larger tetras such as Buenos Aires would complement the Firemouth well, with that you could also keep a pair of bristlenose plecos with them. If you wanted to keep a pair of Firemouths, about all you could keep with them would be a pair of bristlenose plecos.

As far as diet is cocerned, they will eat small cichlid pellets. Frozen fish foods such as mysis, bloodworms are also good....supplementing the diet with some veggies would be a good color boost...emerald entree is a good veggie frozen fish food. Finely chopped fresh seafood is another good food source for firemouths. Id also add some spirulina pellets to the diet as well. Firemouths are small hardy cichlids, provide them with good water quality and diet and they should be fine.

If you kept a pair(M,F) they would take up darn near the whole tank for themselves and their fry. The best way to obtain a pair of firemouths is to buy 5-6 juvies and grow them out together, they will form their own pairs and when you have one it will be pretty obvious as 2 will hang together and keep the remaining fish isolated to one end of the tank. Male firemouths will usually have more elaborate long fins, a redder throat and more blue sheen. Although you will see females that rival males in looks so its not a fool proof way to tell...thus why I suggest buying the small group of fish instead of just picking out 2 fish from your shop.

You could try it, I dont recommend mixed american cichlid tanks in smaller than 4ft tanks. Gourami on the other hand are a possibility, naturally not dwarfs but a 3spot may work out alright with the Firemouth. Barbs are another option.

bettaobsession said:

So would maybe a firemouth, two BPs, and two giant gouramis work? Though the gouramis only get 4 inches, will they be okay? Or will two 3 spot work?

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two bp if u mean blood parrots then no they can get up to a foot 10 inches is more then likely tho. giant Gs no they get up to a foot and a half same with kissing Gs.

why not do this:
1 FM
8 tiger barbs
2 BN plecs

Both the FM's I had are/were mean mean mean. I gave the 1st one away about a year ago and the juvie one I have now is in a 125 g tank with a full grown Oscar and a mean juvie Texas. I can't have a Plec or Loaches or catfish nor any top fish like Silver Dollars in that tank because the Firemouth attacks them. Both the Texas and the FM are scared of the Oscar because he's so big but if that changes in the future they'll have to go, in the meantime they're great cleaner-uppers after the Oscar I'm always surprised when people say FM's aren't real aggressive when both mine were so dang mean.