What african cichlid? Which bottom feeder?

tarheels910

tarheels910

Malawi Maniac
Jul 6, 2006
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Concord, NC
I have an empty 20 gallon tank with sand. I want to put some type of pleco, some type of bottom feeder, and some type of african cichlids. Any suggestions for those three? What cichlid do you recommend? I want something that will live a long time and wont get too big. Also I dont have much money so it cant be too expensive. I also need fish I can purchase at my LFS and not have to track down. So list the fish and some small details about it. (EX. life span, max. size) Thanks for your help.
 
some type of african cichlids
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a 20 gallon tank is too small for keeping African cichlids in it if you're unwilling to do some research on how to maintain them. you "could" keep a colony of Tanganyikan "shell dwellers" but not with
some type of pleco, some type of bottom feeder
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other than these, stay away from african cichlids. you won't be successful.
 
IMO there isn't a pleco that will do well in a 20G, it is just a little too small even for the ones that stay small. You might want to condsider a group of 3-4 of the small cory cats, Pandas or peppered maybe. They are more active than plecos and only get to be 2" each, they do like to be in small groups though. As for the cichlids I can't help you much there, I will leave that opinion to others :)
 
joylynn said:
IMO there isn't a pleco that will do well in a 20G, it is just a little too small even for the ones that stay small. You might want to condsider a group of 3-4 of the small cory cats, Pandas or peppered maybe. They are more active than plecos and only get to be 2" each, they do like to be in small groups though. As for the cichlids I can't help you much there, I will leave that opinion to others :)
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There are plenty of plecos that would be fine in a tank that size. People just seem to assume that when someone says pleco that it will get to be a huge monster. Right now there are over 600 L numbers of plecos and new ones still being discovered. A Queen Arabesque pleco (L260) will max out at 3.5" a 20gal would be perfectly fine for it. I know you said IMO, but wouldn't you agree that 1 3" fish in a 20gal would be better than 3-4 2" fish?
 
I am actually going to order a queen arabesque in the next few days for my 35G and most the info I have found on the various smaller plecos say 30G min. I am sure a smaller pleco can survive in a smaller tank, I am just going off the research I have done into smaller interesting plecos. Plecos generally are required to have more space due to waste and feeding requirements, cories have different less demanding requirements in those areas from my research. Also I have noticed most of the time the tank size requirements I see listed on many web sites are actually a little on the small size, so I was a little concerned about putting a queen arabesque in a 35. Once again though, that is based on what I have looked up. I am sure they can do fine in a smaller tank, the 30G is the smallest RECOMMENDED size for most of the small plecos. Actually one site recommends 50G minimum for the queen arabesque.
 
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