Starting to plan my tank..help needed

dilhcic

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Nov 27, 2006
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Hey, next year in june(tax return) Im planning on setting up a 72"x24"x24" tank, first off how many gallons is that? Im leaning towards a central/south american cichlid tank but Im still open to an African setup..
Red devils, Oscars, Texas cichlids, Jack dempsey, Black Belt cichlids and Green Terrors are all readily available as 2" juvies in my LFS's and these are the fish I would make a selection from. In my tank how many fish from this list could I have? I was thinking 3 but is 4 possible? If I could I would have them all lol but I can't. What are some good combinations of fish? I want to buy them at 2" so I can watch them grow into monsters :grinyes: Its gonna take me all that time to decide what cichlids I want, theres just to many! I love all of them :)
 
Your tank will be about 175g
With the choices you have I would go for a dempsey, texas and green terror-all males. I would get 3 or 4 of each and grow them out to around 4" and pick the best one. Or you could order some really nice cichlids online.

What kind of filteration are you going with?
 
thanks Scott, I don't what kind of filtration Im going with yet, any suggestions? I have a good 9 months to plan my set-up so theres no rush...
 
Sounds like it will be a great tank! I also am planning a large CA/SA cichlid tank.....though it will be a year before I will be able to set it up LOL. So we're in the same boat there. I'd go with a GT, JD, and Texas (although I would go w/ an escondido green texas), maybe another cichlid like a geophagus that can hold its own, and a small group of clown loaches. For filtration, I would go with a Fluval FX5 and a Rena XP4 - no such thing as being overfiltered.
 
Red devils not a good choice if you want other cichlids
Oscars large and peaceful i say a good choice to get one
Texas cichlids large but can be aggressive if its a male
Jack dempsey an amazing cichlid i highly suggest but they get big and can be aggressive
Black Belt cichlids all i know is that they get big i have zero experience with them
Green Terrors a good choice if you chose Jacks, Texas or Oscar

heres what i would do.

1 female Texas
1 female Jack Dempsey
1 male Oscar
1 male Green Terror
 
thanks for your thoughts everyone, as I say I have a while yet before I take the plunge so plenty of time to decide, I really like Red Devils but I know they can be very aggressive so I might pass on getting one, I also love jaguar cichlids, do they get along with oscars? Maybe 1 oscar and 1 jag would be nice, I know those 2 fish can get very large so would that be about all i could have?
 
You could get lucky but I think the jag would beat the **** out of the Oscar.
You may be better of going with a friedrichstahl or loiselli if you really like Parachromis sp.
 
try a Freddy they get to about 11in a lot smaller compared to a Jaguar hitting 15in

the Freddy aren't as aggressive either and you can keep two i believe
 
how is the OP supposed to pick out a male oscar at 2"?
 
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