red devil

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jennymit21

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Apr 20, 2004
Messages
229
Location
sanford, florida
someone i know is trying to get rid of her 75g FW tank which currently houses her 8" red devil. She is including the wooden stand and all of the goodies (price $100) I have offered to take it off of her hands so that it goes to a good home, however i don't know much about cichlids. I only have a 55g community FW.

1.) Is this tank too small for this type of fish?

2.) If the tank is not too small are there any other fish that would be
good tankmates for it?

I just want to make sure that i make a happy home for this fish so any other suggestions as to care or general info would be awesome. TIA
 
jennymit21....

Eventually, even a 75 will be a bit cramped for a Red Devil...not excessively so...but a bit tight. Tank-mates for a Red Devil include any other vicious, mean, nasty, rotten, evil, vile-tempered, jaw-locking, fin-biting, plant-uprooting. gravel-rearranging vermin of a fish!! :lol: You could consider equal-sized or larger Jaguar Cichlids (managuense), Red Terrors (Aequidens festae), Green Terrors (Aequidens rivulatus) or other similarly rough and rugged fish! If you need a scavenger...try a big 'plecostomus' or two.
 
how about a jurapari cichlid? i saw one the other day in a LFS and he was sooooo cute! he kept picking up gravel in his mouth and shooting it out at any other fish that got near him....had me laughing so hard i had to find the restroom! :lach: he was about 5-6" but i'm thinking he might be too mellow as he was in there with some angels.
 
You need to reseach the Red Devil and find its origin--South or Central America, and then pick tank mates based on that and temperament.
 
One fish I would suggest is a Jack Dempsey. Wonderful colors and would do well with your terror. SAs are quite hardy, but need weekly water changes as they are messy fish. I feed mine hikari brand cichlid pellets on a daily basis. With frozen food and the occasional feeder guppy (breed them yourself, do not buy them from a lfs). Make sure you have a 8-10x turnover rate too. Give them lots of decorations so they can stake out their territories, but leave plenty of room to swim. Enjoy your cichlids!
 
Good advice Endgame! However with the Red Devil and JD, a tank upgrade will be in your future :D
 
i just spoke with the owner of the fish and tank and she said they put a pacu in with it one time that was bigger and the RD killed it, a bigger oscar was killed, and a HUGE pleco was picked on to severely. That coupled with the fact that things might get too cramped leads me to think that he likes being a loner and i should leave it that way :(

but she did tell me that she only feeds him 10 goldfish every 2 weeks (which sounds cruel to me and unhealthy) and throws the occasional tree frog or cricket in there...........anyone else seem to think this isn't quite right or healthy? i'm not completely passing judgement because i know i spoil the fish i have constantly.

anyway, if anyone else has ever owned one of these little devils please let me know how things went. I don't want to commit to this unless i'm positive. Meanwhile i will ocntinue the researching process.
 
ummmm.... i don't think feeding your fish as little and as cheeply as possible qualifies as good competent caretaking if you are not feeding them healthily. Again, i could be wrong about the fish's diet not being healthy.
 
wait sry bad math 26$ a year fo the goldfish

but i think you should feed it more often in less amounts
 
I believe the point jenny was trying to make was that feeding a fish with "feeder" goldfish (which usually come from a 40 gallon tank at the LFS stuffed with 100 or so goldfish) is not healthy in that the goldfish are going to be unhealthy due to their original conditions and the tropical tank is likely to be vastly different in temperature needs for the goldfish causing the ones that stick around for a week to have a greater chance of getting disease.
 
I have also heard that goldfish are not all that nutricious either to be used for the main part of the diet.
 
exactly Patry what i was saying...very well said!! and that's what i have heard too Cage.
i did a little more research (although not much out there that i could find), and bought some floating cichlid pellets, and some freeze dried crickets. I also already have some sun dried shrimp and freezedried bloodworms for my community tank. Hopefully these will work out and the fish will take them since he has been fed on ly live food for the past 5 yrs. I don't think i have the heart to feed him live stuff other than brine shrimp- :slurp: -and i'm definitely not going to touch a live cricket or other bugs (yes i am sorta girly)

once again if anyone has any experience with the Red Devil Cichlid (not to be confused with the Midas) then please let me know what you have found out. TIA
 
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