midasman714;3409475; said:
i'm thinking of setting up a 75 Gallon tank (48x18x20).
i want a community of CA cichlids. what are my options?
on the top of my head i can think of firemouths and convicts?? but how many of each etc.. thanks!
Ok... Community... Do you want pairs and fry, or singletons? How many fish would you like to have in the tank? Pairs would obviously cut down on numbers, as would larger sizes.
I'll take you at your word, and figure singletons and smallish so you can have more fish... Firemouth, mixteco, Honduran red points, sajica, cutteri, convicts, multispinosa, keyholes, spinossisimus, rams, angels, apistos, female nicaraguense, female salvini. All are possibilities, but as you choose a fish, you eliminate some others as possiblities. For example, if you go with small fish: rams, apistos, you eliminate larger and nastier fish like firemouth and salvini. If you pick docile fish like keyholes, you eliminate the nasty fish. You also have to watch out for crosspairs: Convict with ANYTHING, hrp with sajica, firemouth with mixteco, etc.
So... Possibilities:
1. Firemouth, hrp, female nic, sajica/multispinosa. A hrp and sajica combination might pair, but the other two would be big enough and hearty enough to deal.
2. Ram, apisto, keyhole, angel. You could even have pairs here since these guys are either small or mild-mannered.
3. Putting the female sal into the picture eliminates everything but the nic and firemouth (and you'd still need some luck, imo).
The spino is a very mild fish like the keyhole. Cutteri is going to be similar to the sajica or hrp. Multispinosa is hard to classify; very active fish, very personable, usually pretty mild, but I wouldn't put it in the same category as a keyhole or spino. Mixteco are a slightly less nasty version of Thorichthys (like firemouth).
Convicts are small, but feisty... AND... As mentioned, they would breed with ROCKS if they could!
