Best Dither Fish

[carsonrm01]

Gourami Swami I created this thread for people to post their favorite dither but since you asked I have a 125 with 1 green terror, 1 belly crawler pike cichlid, and 1 Senegal bichir. They are all small and have been getting along fine but the tank looks kind of empty

 

[Hendre]

I'm currently using a group of electric blue acara as dithers as my T ellioti picked on my bichir, now everyone is happy.

 

[carsonrm01]

Couldn’t my green terror breed with electric blue acara?

 

[Gourami Swami]

Couldn’t my green terror breed with electric blue acara?

Yes it could potentially
For your tank I would recommend larger SA characins. Silver dollars would work fine. Any other cichlids that you added to distribute aggression would not really be "dithers" to me, but target fish.

Here is a south american themed tank I had a couple years back. The crenicichla were the only cichlids, and the dithers were redhook myleus silver dollars.

Though they are not geographically correct for any cichlid, and thus not my first choice; I have found that large barbs work very well for aggressive cichlids. I had these clown barbs years back which got to about 5-6" and were very speedy swimmers. They worked as dithers (also partially target fish due to larger size) for my vieja and amphilophus who could never seem to catch them.


But my favorite dithers that I have kept recently, would probably be the Ameca splendens that I kept a few years ago in a central american themed setup. I also had some Belonesox Belizanus with them but I can't seem to find pictures of those.
Ameca Splendens


Also got this rare wild type swordtail at auction years back and I still have him, he lives with my panamensis cichlid. Mean little bastard, his species name is Xiphophorus Kallmani "La margarita catemaco", supposedly coming from rusty wessell's wild collection stock

 

[carsonrm01]

Gourami Swami what fish would you recommend on Wet Spot? I’m ordering from there because it’s one of the only places that has a belly crawler.

Current Stock – Fish : The Wet Spot Tropical Fish

Tropical Fish

www.wetspottropicalfish.com

Thanks for writing all of that!

 

[duanes]

.Personally I decide what the dither fish will be for cichlids based on region.

carsonrm01 tell us about your setup (tank size, stock) and we would be able to recommend a dither. Without that info, recommending anything is just shooting in the wind.

I agree with the above,
Not only because combining differing geographic areas looks a bit off to me, but combing fish from similar ecological water parameters helps in the general health of the tank.
With many Mexican and Central American Cichlids great dither swould be large enough live bearers that normally share their habitat, and live in water parameters with high mineral content..

For southern Central Americans, and South Americans from west of the Andes, tetras are some of the most common habitat sharing species.
In my current Panamanian tank Roeboides genus tetras are working well, caught in the same pH 8 and above waters

For Amazonian species the tetras that are adapted to the soft more acidic , low pH waters work well.

For southern South Americans, as suggested above, Buenos Aires tetras are great, not only because they share habitat, and water parameters like hardness, but also cooler more seasonal water temps.

 

[carsonrm01]

duanes would anything in my setup be able to eat the Buenos Aires tetras?
most of the fish you mentioned are not on Wet Spot. I have to order from there because they have what I need. What would you recommend on Wet Spot?

 

[Gourami Swami]

Gourami Swami what fish would you recommend on Wet Spot? I’m ordering from there because it’s one of the only places that has a belly crawler.

Current Stock – Fish : The Wet Spot Tropical Fish

Tropical Fish

www.wetspottropicalfish.com

Thanks for writing all of that!

Looks like they only have one type of silver dollar, the schomburgkii. They would be ideal. You can also usually find normal silver dollars locally, pretty common fish. Some other fish in the wet spot's characin list would likely be OK for a while but once full size the pike may be able to snack on them. Colombian tetras come to mind.

 

[carsonrm01]

The one silver dollar is 35 each so Im going to look for regular silver dollars at my LFS. Do silver dollars need to have a vegetable in their diet everyday Gourami Swami ?

 

[duanes]

Depending on the sis of the BA tetras, an adult belly crawler could easily eat them.
I usually try to keep dithers to that are almost the size of the cichlids, my current tank below with Roeboides tetras.
Panamanian Tank

Whatare the other cichlids in your tank?