Cichla in a 7 ft tank?

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Achilles1763

Achilles1763

Polypterus
MFK Member
Feb 15, 2016
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UK
Hello, I am setting up my 7ftx2ftx2ft tank next week (it arrives Tuesday) and I am kicking around ideas of what to keep. Basically it's going to be sand substrate, lots of large bogwood, rock work and a reasonable amount of plants. It will have 2x Fx6 external filters running and a subdued LED lighting set up.

Tanks mates will be my jaguar cichlid (3-4 inches) and my 14 inch fahaka puffer... Now before you all start I have had her with other fish since she was a fry and is currently living with the jag and rainbow fish so she is not your normal fahaka.

Now to my question..can I house successful for their lifetime any species of cichla? And if so which species and how many?

Like i said I am fleshing out stocking lists and have 3 separate ones so far (depending on availability really of suitable speciems). But cichla have always been fascinating and beautiful and as this is my dream tank I figured it might be time to look isn't the idea in detail.

Thanks
 
I am going to be doing a tank building thread in the general discussions forum, as it's going to take me a week to fully assemble and fill. Then once it's all aquascaped i need to make some final decisions on fish.. I will endeavour to get plenty of pictures on there.
 
Achilles1763 said:
I am going to be doing a tank building thread in the general discussions forum, as it's going to take me a week to fully assemble and fill. Then once it's all aquascaped i need to make some final decisions on fish.. I will endeavour to get plenty of pictures on there.
Click to expand...

I meant the Fahaka as well haha
 
I have had cichla living with a 20" Mbu and now a 9" Mbu without any issues. It's amazing to see how fearless these puffers are, especially the smaller one.

In terms of tank size, I would just remind you that most cichla species will grow to 18" and beyond. So, you would certainly be limited in how many you can have in there. You can look into the Intermedia, which are the smallest cichla (14-16" I believe) but are incredibly expensive and hard to come by.

Also, I know that the Mbus are crazy sensitive to nitrates - and the more big fish you have in your tank the harder it will be to keep those numbers down for the Fahaka.
 
fastfisher5, on the bogwood is my channa bleheri. She is best mates with the fahaka and they happily sleep next to each other.

She wasn't very colourful so the guys at the lfs said I should get a male one to get her to colour up. So I did and everything was going great and both the snakeheads slept at the other end of the tank away from the fahaka. So a couple weeks go by and then this

image.jpeg
 
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