Severums in a tropical type community

[Mystroe_TheMyst]

Hey gang,

So I've been setting up my tropical community slowly slowly, but I'm getting a bit frustrated with stocking fish and losing fish - having a hard time keeping loaches alive...they're finding gaps in rocks etc. which are causing them to get stuck.

I'm wondering if I could get a few gold/green severums to float around and bring some character into my tank.

10 danios
5 rosy barbs
3 molly's
5 yoyo loaches
1 silver shark
2 gourami's
1 bristlenose
2 gold fish

I'm mostly worried about the loaches and silver shark since the other fish aren't very expensive.

I want a few larger marquee fish and I've kept severums before and they were super placid just wondering if anyone has run a mixed setup like this before.

6'x2'x2' - fake plants

 

[Wren]

I have a 125 g tank with 2 severums. The tank also has tiger barbs, turquoise rainbow fish, bristlenose plecos, 2 clown loaches and 1 yo yo loach. Everyone gets along really well. Your danios and mollies might get eaten. Or maybe not. This is the second time I have had severums and neither pair seemed to be particularly persistent hunters.

You might want to move the goldfish out. They really do better in cooler water and they are messy fish that need even more frequent water changes than tropicals.

wren

 

[Mystroe_TheMyst]

Wren, Cheers for that, I'm glad it works well. My mollies probably will get chomped, but I used to keep danio's as dithers and I can rely on their speed. Yeah the goldfish are loving life in there and they're not very big so I'm not heaps bothered by them being in their and I'm not setting up another tank to house them (they are 1" atm).

How do your pair go with plants?

 

[Rafini]

I had an F1 Rotkeil that lived with swordtails just fine, he didn't even eat the plants (anubias and java fern)
I have had some albino severums several years earlier and 1 died prematurely to some kind of eye infection. The remaining 2 were polar opposites, one was very peaceful and pleasant the other was aggressive and would bang the glass to chase your finger.

In general they don't tend to eat other fish unless absolutely tiny mouth sized snacks. in a large tank like yours with lots of areas to hide and break site you could keep them, grab a small group of them and grow them out. They have a great personality

 

[FreshyFresh]

Severums get quite large and anything small enough to be ingested, potentially will be. I absolutely love my green sev. He/she gets bullied by his oscar tank-mate, but is very feisty and shoves right in front at feeding time.

 

[Anders247]

My severum is peaceful.......

 

[Wren]

No live plants in my tank. I suspect they would eat them. They are good about leaving the plastic plants alone. Some big cichlids like to dig them up. So far that has not been a problem.

wren

 

[skinnyfish]

My 2 severums share a tank with a pleco, an angelfish and a school of cardinal tetras, no problems.