Jeweled Cichlids

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Shells

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Jan 30, 2011
Messages
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I Currently have 4 in a tank. I know that htere is defiantley one male and one female as they have had babies. Not sure of the sex of the other 2. I am wanting to put some more fish in with them, but wanted to know what type fish would go best with them, as they can be aggresive? I brought a male peacock and put him in there with them, but realised that wasnt such a good idea, as 2 of the chihlids where fighting with him, so i took him out.

Thanks for you advise
 
As far as tank mates go I would definitely stick to SA Cichlids, because many of the African Cichlids (especially Malawi) are significantly more aggressive than Jewels.

A few questions which would help... How big is the tank? and How big are the fish? Are they full grown or are they still fairly small?
 
Here is what I found on Jeweled /Cichlids FYI
Hope it's imformative.

Species name: Hemichromis bimaculatus
size: 14 cm/ 5.5 inch

Jewel cichlid is another one of all those cichlids that has gotten a bad reputation for being aggressive without actually deserving it. Sure, cichlids are aggressive if your used to keeping in Guppy and Danios and compare them to fish like those, but this doesn’t really mean that they aggressive. The truth is that Jewel cichlids seldom bother fish of other species outside it’s own outside the breeding period and you can’t really blame them for chasing away any other fish that approaches their fry.

My experiences with jewel cichlids are that they without any problems can be kept in most community aquariums as long as to fragile species are avoided. You should however be able to keep them with just about any cichlid that grows larger then 10cm/ 4 inches as well as with many species of dwarf cichlids. Other suitable companions for Jewel cichlids include danios, silver dollars, cory cats, sucker mouth plecos, different barb species, synodontis catfish and a number of other fishes.

Jewel cichlids are very hardy fish that can adept to most surroundings as long as there are caves and a few flats present. They are not suitable for aquariums of less than 150 L / 40 gallon. A smaller aquarium can be used to house a single pair for breeding purposes. Jewel cichlids do best with pH 6.5-7.5 but will accept pH 6-8 and temperature 23-27C / 74-80F.

Jewel cichlids likes to dig which disturbs plants and can often destroy plants if they are kept in planted aquariums. There is however number of plants that will do well in an aquarium with jewel cichlids and a number of other species that will do well as long as you protect their with stones around their base. Examples of plants that do well if you cover their base are different type of Amazon Sword plants and Cryptocoryne species. Plants like Anubias species and Java fern do well without any cover for their roots as these are hardy plants that shouldn’t be planted in the bottom substrate but rather attached to rocks and pieces of bogwood. This is just a few examples of suitable plants and there are many more available. You can try to keep more fragile plants with your jewel cichlids since some fish are less likely to destroy plants than other individuals. I do however not recommend that you try very fragile plants such as Cabomba and Rotala species.

Jewel cichlid will according to my experience accept everything you try to feed them and will do well on a diet of pellets and the occasional live and frozen food. A diet like this sufficient to get jewel cichlids into spawning condition provided that you keep the water clean and offer them suitable spawning sites.

It is said that the hardest part when trying to breed jewel cichlids is to get a compatible pair but this is according to my experience with this fish not a problem at all. You can buy a single pair and these will form a pair as long as you buy a female that is a little smaller then the male. Larger females only seldom accept smaller males. However if this shouldn’t work for you as it has for me your best bet is to buy a small group of young jewel cichlids and let them grow up and from pairs by there own will.
 
My experience with jewels is they're not as aggressive as they're put out to be. They don't however like the bigger cichlids like jacks and jaguars. I do have black convict and firemouths in with my jewels. They seem to do real well together but I also don't have a breeding pair!
 
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