You may want to use natural breaks and plants to separate the Cichlids and you should ensure that water flow in the aquarium is slow, to help the Cichlids adjust.Ĭan You Keep Different Types of Cichlids Together? The answer is a simple Yes! However, you should be aware of their natural habitat. Keeping different types of Cichlids together will be beneficial for both the water and the plant life inside the aquarium. Big cichlids will eat the tetras eventually.Īfrican cichlid image – Author: Ed Schipul Licensed under: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.Adding different Cichlids to your tank will brighten it up and keep the fish happy. If there is just one thing you will remember I want you to remember that tetras will only survive when you match them with dwarf cichlids. To conclude this article, I want to give you a short summary. Adding a pile of rocks or tall plants allows the fish to get out of each others sight. When there is no place for the female to go, the male will keep harassing her as he is always able to see where she is. When cichlids are breeding they will show way more aggression to other fish that enter their territory as they are protecting their eggs and fry.Ī different scenario happens when a breeding pair of cichlids in a tank start to display breeding behavior. This is especially important when you plant to breed your cichlids in the aquarium. This way, they will learn to share the aquarium with others instead of seeing the entire aquarium as their own territory.įurthermore, when combining dwarf cichlids with tetras, make sure your tank is big enough and that there are enough hiding spots and objects to break the line of sight. One of the ways to raise your chances is to add the cichlids to the aquarium when they are still really small. It is always difficult to predict whether something will work out when combining cichlids with different fish species. When the tetras are too small the angel fish will eat them. Therefore it is a risk to keep them with regular lemon-, cardinal-, or neon tetras. While there are smaller varieties of angelfish out there, most angel fish grow to be rather big. Therefore it is possible to add them to a group of other big fish.Īngelfish are also cichlids from South America, and are sometimes kept in community tanks. This is the beauty of silver dollars, they grow rather big (up to 8″ or 20 cm). They made for a good combo and had no problems. Know that it is not necessary to have dither fish as cichlids are curious fish that like to explore.ĭo not add small tetras to bigger SA cichlids as they will end up as a meal.įrom experience someone told me that they kept an Oscar together with a couple of silver dollars. This in turn will make your cichlids swim more in the front of your aquarium. Dither fish is a fish that you add to make your cichlids feel more comfortable. Therefore there is overlap with the silver dollars. The desired pH of SA cichlids is between 6 and 7.5. If you’re looking for some cichlid proof plants to add to your aquarium, make sure to check out my list here.įor the regular sized SA cichlids there is an option to add silver dollars to your aquarium to serve as dither fish. The dwarf cichlids will still show the dominant and territorial behavior from cichlids and therefore might be aggressive towards other fish. These smaller SA cichlids are suitable to keep with regular size tetras such as cardinal tetras given that the tank size is sufficient and you add enough rocks, plants or ornaments to break the line of sight. Examples are Ram cichlids like the Blue Ram and Bolivian Ram and the rainbow kribensis. Unlike African cichlids, there are some dwarf cichlids that come from South America. There are a lot of beautiful South American (SA) cichlids available to add to our aquarium. Therefore I would recommend to not keep these fish together, as they will never thrive is suboptimal water parameters.Īlso, do not keep African cichlids with your regular ember/neon/cardinal tetra as they are too small and will get eaten by African cichlids as they are way bigger. Silver dollars prefer a pH between 5 and 7, while in general African cichlids prefer a pH between 7.5 and 9. It has been done, but you should know there is a difference in the required pH between Afican cichlids and silver dollars. Therefore, one can not keep African cichlids together with tetras.Ī popular fish to add to an African cichlid tank are silver dollars. Most African cichlids grow quite big and are therefore able to eat all tetras. Most people recommend to keep a cichlid only tank, but a lot of people add other fish and make it work. Keeping African cichlids with other fish is a challenge.
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