Recent content by Voodoo Chilli

Kribs are native to the rivers and streams of west Africa and are not brackish, to my knowledge. I wouldn't expect them to be very tough to come by, as they are a fairly common fish. You could keep dithers with them, but I'd look at schooling tetras, rasboras, danios, etc. (Something that...

It's possible to keep angels and sevs together, but you'd need a bigger tank than the 55g.

Cichlids will often become territorial upon reaching sexual maturity. The cories are occupying the same space as the krib, so he may now see them as intruders in his space.

In my exerience, it's better to keep the water stable, rather than trying to "fix" it. I've kept rams many times in what I like to refer to as "liquid concrete"-- tap water with a pH around 8 and very high KH and GH levels. Granted, I did have to use distilled water to soften it a bit for...

Not sure what your room temperature is, but rams need to be kept at least in the upper 70s (77-80F).

I'd have to say you're at maximum level with just the one oscar, let alone adding any other fish into the mix.

Get at least six, but you could easily go with a dozen. Just make sure you add them all at the same time. Multis do not tolerate intruders in their colonies and those colonies get set up pretty quickly.

If this is your first time with shellies, I highly recommend multies. Not to take anything away from the simis, but multies have all the great characteristics of the shell dwellers and are very colonial oriented. Some of the others tend to pair off and don't exhibit the "family" behaviour of...

It wouldn't hurt anything, but I don't see it helping much either. I try to vary foods day to day, so the fish don't get bored with the same thing over and over.

Triazole is exactly right. You wouldn't have any problems keeping a single con, but a male and a female WILL make many thousands of babies, not to mention terrorizing other tankmates in the pursuit of parental duties.

Have you checked on Aquabid yet? The ACA has listings for breeders; someone there may be able to help you out.

And you'll want to make sure the tank is FULLY cycled before adding any Apistos.

Cacatuoides are a great "starter" dwarf.

IME, it doesn't have to be super hard or alkaline (unless you're dealing with wild stock). Keeping it stable and of high quality seems to be much more important than having it "perfect". What's your tap water look like?