New American Cichlid Tank Opinions

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nugget6476

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Aug 12, 2012
Messages
49
Location
Australia
I am thinking of setting up a new tank with some bigger fish in it,

Tank size - 150cm x 50cm x 66cm..... 400 odd litres

Going for an American cichlid Tank for personality and size

Fish:
1 Red Tiger Oscar - Astronotus ocellatus
1 Jack Dempsey - Rocio octofasciatum
1 Gold Severum - Heros efasciatus
1 Firemouth - Thorichthys meeki
5 or 6 Silver Dollars - Metynnis hypsauchen

I did run it through the program Aq Advisor and i got these results

May eventually require 120% of your aquarium space
May need to deal with teretorial aggresions later on
Reccomended water change schedule - 38%
Aquarium stocking level is 120%

I really like all these fish and it would be a shame to take one out just to drop that percentage down a bit, I know the logical one to not put in there is the Jack Dempsey, but im hoping that it might be ok. Im also assuming that plants would be a no go in this tank?. If you have any advice or thoughts as to whether that would be a good mix, or anything to do with good kinds of food, substrate, tank decor ect, that would be great.

Thanks:)
 
haha thats ok, thats great to hear that it should work though, cant wait to start putting it together:)
 
I had an oscar in with my small jack dempsys and they killed my oscar. Just keep an eye out. Some people say oscars are some what tempermental but mine was very non agressive. He got beat up and died while out running errands one day. :/
 
I had an oscar in with my small jack dempsys and they killed my oscar. Just keep an eye out. Some people say oscars are some what tempermental but mine was very non agressive. He got beat up and died while out running errands one day. :/

Oscars are definitely not aggressive in my opinion, only predatory(they attack what they will eat) I would try and get as much swimming room as possible with as much decor as possible also to block them from each other (their eyesight)
 
Thanks for all the input everyone :), im glad I made a good topic, its sounding like the best option would be to not put in the Jack demspey like I thought, but maybe if I get them all small and grow them up together they might work out? I duno, if there were any issues I could always remove the jack dempsey into another tank I guess. Defenitly like the Oscars because of the personality, and gold severums are very beautiful especially when they get big, and i thought the firemouths look like cool little tough guys haha. Maybe I could go 2 firemouths in there instead of the Jack?, and yea I do want the silver dollar school in there to add that effect of something always going on.

And I mean Im sure some idiots put all the aggressive types together to try get them to fight, but Im defeintly trying to find the best combo to make a nice happy tank with big fish thats all :)
 
Sounds cool!
Will follow!
I haven't kept any cichlids, but am planning on a bolivian ram for my 20H
 
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