What Size Tank Would I Need?

[lucy42083]

I really want to do a large South American cichlid tank. I'm not going to be able to get it going for a while though. I'm moving in about a year, and first I'll be upgrading my community to a 55G planted after I move, so I'm hoping to be able to do this tank shortly after that. However I want to start thinking about and planning it now, so I can start looking for used tanks, researching fish, etc.

My 'dream stock' is:

1 Green Terror (I really want a male, can you sex these when young?)
1 Oscar
1 Redheaded Severum
1 Pleco of some kind

How large of a tank would I need to properly house all those fish? Or is there no hope of having them all together?

 

[slicklid]

I am gonna say probably no smaller than 125g.

 

[krytan]

I agree a 125g min' but a 150g would be better.

 

[lucy42083]

Cool that's what I was thinking, somewhere in the 125-180G range. If I get them all when small, what are the chances of the GT killing/bullying the oscar and severum? Would you recommend that I get the GT last to try and prevent any aggression? I know they can be, well, "terrors" sometimes but that's the #1 fish I want right now.

 

[krytan]

It really depends on the individual fish as they all have very diffrent personalities. As i have never owned a gt i can't say much about them but i would imagine they are similar to jd's and i have a oscar and severum with a jd in a 180g tank with no problems. The only fish in my tank that does stir things up is my texas but all the other fish are big enough to knock him down a peg when he needs it.

 

[soonerfan121]

I have a green terror an oscar and a green severum in a tank together. You will absolutely want to buy the severum as big as you can get him. The terrors grow fast and even smaller ones will bully bigger fish. The bigger the severum the less likely the green terror will kill it. The oscar in the tank gets picked on more by the severum than the green terror, I guess thats the pecking order for my tank. But I can tell you that both the terror and the oscar will grow faster than the severum by far.

 

[duneenworywifit]

Ever thought about building a plywood tank?you can make it any size you want,I have a single dovii in a120,thats even to small for him.Im making a 300gal for him out of plywood and a tempered starfire glass door

 

[MiramichiMob]

10G