Colorful dithers for cichlids?

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fishfreak2009

Candiru
MFK Member
Sep 25, 2009
694
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Michigan
Throw out some colorful dithers you can think of for medium size CA/SA cichlids (such as the red Devil, Festae, Green Terror, Jack Dempsey, etc.)

Looking for some colorful fish to use as dithers, since according to the parents giant danios, silver dollars, and tinfoil barbs are all ugly silver fish.

I thought maybe jewel cichlids and tiger barbs. Any other ideas? Pics are appreciated as well.
 
Giant danios get some cool yellow markings and red fins. And you can get red hook silver dollars. I don't think they are ugly silver fish at all.

I do like tiger barbs though. I have them in with my jd and gt.

I've seen pearl Gouramis work with ebjd's before. I think you need a fairly passive fish for this to work though.
 
Do not do tiger barbs with the fish you mentioned. I had a school of 11 very large ones that lived happily with my cichlids for a long time. One day I came home to find them all dead, one still in my baby JD's mouth.
 
I would definatley skip the jewel cichlids. If you end up with a breeding pair they can be quite dangerious...even to the larger fish. I would suggest filament barbs, they have bright red markings on their tails and as they get older end up with a rainbow sheen to their silver scales. Very active and friendly fish.

Here is a link to their profile

http://www.seriouslyfish.com/profile.php?genus=Puntius&species=filamentosus&id=180

and a pic

Filament Barb.jpg
 
I don't really know that they would be dither fish necessarily but I have thought about starting a colony of platies in on of my tanks. They are like self reproducing food. If you got enough at one time to get them started breeding they could be self sustaining and would look pretty cool. But again. Not really a dither. Just a thought.
 
Neither platties or fil barbs would work either with american cichlids. This is something I have researched and tried many different options. Here are a few fish that have the potential for working: Red tailed black shark, flag tail barb, possibly larger bala sharks, some puffer fish. Note that it depends on the size of the tank, hiding spots, size of the fish, what age they are put together.
 
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