Americancichlid
Aquarium Advice Newbie
Hi all I am a new member and I keep American cichlids. How many big American cichlids do you guys think can go in a 180 gallon tank or a 682 litre tank. Thanks.
It all depends. My advice would be proceed slowly and see how things go. I tend to keep my population on the low side in my cichlid tanks, whereas some cram them in. The guy who had an accidental breeding of beautiful OBs kept 40 in a 90 g. These were African varieties. He felt the dense population reduced aggression, along with keeping them in very dim lighting. I was surprised, but later read his practices are not all that unusual.
I am getting good info from Facebook groups devoted to specific types of fish. I’m sure there’s one on American cichlids. I’m in ones for Oscars, plecos, OBs, dojo loaches, clown loaches, goldfish and Jack Dempsey cichlids.
Ok thanks a lot for the info. I am trying to complete the nitrogen cycle at the moment on the 6x2x2 it has one fx6 running on it do you think a fluival 407 which has been running for close to two years would instantly skip the cycle
Andy, mine hides out most of the time. Once Tex hid out so well that I didn’t see him for several days and worried the others whacked him in the still of the night, although I’ve never observed aggression among this group. I was about to do a tank shakedown (remove plants & hides) to search for him, but he eventually emerged & is fine. I wonder if he was a brooding female or what, as during this period Tex did not surface to eat. Usually he pigs down the chow. I have no idea if an American cichlid can even breed with the peacocks or OB peacocks or not, but the behavior was unusual. He/she’s my favorite fish in that tank. Someone gave me Tex & 6 peacocks about a year ago. This fish is slowly growing and very pretty.
More likely she whipped those eggs into an omelette and didn’t need extra food. That’s what my severums have been known to do.
More likely she whipped those eggs into an omelette and didn’t need extra food. That’s what my severums have been known to do.
If the Fluval 407 has been running on an aquarium with fish in, and there is another filter on that tank where the filter came from, then moving it to the new tank should help speed up the cycling process and deal with any ammonia in the water within a few days. Then you could add some fish assuming ammonia is kept at 0ppm.
One of the tough things with American Cichlids is that they tend to be more territorial than some of the other Cichlid families so you are going to need to keep a lot of rockwork and/or hiding places for them to make territories.
As for how many can you keep, it will all depend on how many territories you can make and which cichlids you are keeping. For some species, 1 could take up the whole tank. For others, they may take up smaller territories so you can have a lot in a long tank.
There's just no way to definitively answer your question.
AmericanCichlid, here's the pic of my Texan that rotated 180 when uploaded yesterday from the iPad, so i deleted it. I'm trying on the laptop today. too bad the cam isn't picking up the iridescent blue dots.