I've been raising Cichlids now for a little over a year and thought I would prepare you for what's about to happen. I had 2 empty 10 gallons and a 29 gallon tank. I bought 6 cichlids, about as small as you can find them in a pet store, and the pet store employee assured me that a 29 gallon would be plenty of room for the cichlids, I even read a few articles and books and convinced myself I had enough room. I started them in a 10 gallon tank, in about a month to 2 months they had grown from under 1/4 of an inch to 1 inch and were becoming impossible to manage in a 10 gallon so I moved them to a 29 gallon. They were pretty much fine for about 3 months until one of them became extremely dominant. He killed one of the others and so I moved him into a separate tank. Basically from then on for the rest of the year I kept moving them around trying to get a balance and it never working until three of the original 6 had been killed off. Then they were fine, they had enough room to escape on another. I have since moved one of the original 6--now over 4 inches long in one year and given the other 2 to friends and am about to transfer my new batch--all over 1 inch in less than 2 months--to a 100 Gallon tank. Basically, enjoy having all of them in a small tank now, because either they will all kill each other until 1 remains or you will have to move them to a new tank. Basically, a full grown african cichlid needs a minimum of 10 gallons to himself and even more if they grow over about 6 inches. Don't get me wrong I love the guys, the one I kept has more personality than any dog or cat I've ever had, but they need alot of room. By the way, the pictus may be able to be put in as long as they are substantially larger than the cichlids and be prepared for them to lose their whiskers, they may perhaps be killed, you never really know with cichlids. I've had a synodontis eurepetus (the one everyone says to get) killed by them who were bigger than the cichlids but I also have a plecostomus and a tiger barb who have survived.