FishProfiles.com Message Forums

A number of web searches have given personal info that keeping a(or pair)of African lake Jewel cichlids can be keeped with a SA Green Terror and a Blue Acara cichlid.

Anyone here have any first hand knowledge of doing that with acceptable results, Please?

Hello,

I haven't heard of anyone that had good results mixing african cichlids with cichlids from other regions. Probably why no response. I know when I tried it, I had disastrous results.

The first reason is African require quite very different water parameters then SA or CA. They also communicate differently leading to aggression issues, leading to fish loss. Usually the Africans killing the others, even if the others are quite larger. (directly killed or thru constant harrassment until the fish no longer eats)

Kribensis (west african dwarf cichlids and their closely related riverine cousins) can be mixed with other cichlids, but choose tankmates carefully. Green terrors would kill them, oscars would eat them if they can catch it, etc etc. Common sense prevails. It'd be wiser to keep the fish in the tank about the same size. Keep dwarfs with dwarfs, and larger semi-aggresive or aggresive with same.

Rams and other dwarf cichlids would be ideal for krib mates but also need enough space for eveyone, territory is all important for any cichlid, especially if any breeding occurs. But the regular african cichlids should not be mixed with SA or CA cichlids.

The Amazon Nut...

Well then, I may need to get rid of the GT (no matter how colorful they are)...they just get too large anyway.

And I'd rather have more fish, that one really large one with "medium sized" others.

Actually a jewel cichlid is a river cichlid, people often make the mistake of assumming african cichlid means rift cichlid, and many jewels suffer gill, developmental, and behavioural issues in the wrong ph and hardness. They languish and eventually die in rift lake aquaria with violent cagemates they will loathe. Think of a jewel as a bigger, meaner, kribiensis and youll be closer to the mark. On water quality grounds theyre perfectly compatible with GT's, but the communication problems will remain an issue.

The jewel has a defensive personality,the GT an aggressive one. The GT will probably pick on the jewel, and the jewel as a result, may turn explosive. I think in once sense in a large enough tank its doable, and on the other hand , its also a miserable existance for the smaller fish even if it might (as jewel cichlids often do) get the bigger GT to retreat with a bout of temper or be able to hide away from the GT.

Its not ideal, personally id avoid the combo. It might work for a few people but it wont work for 95% of the people who try. Personally I think the combo is too dicey to be considered responsible fishkeeping. Chances are the jewel might be killed, and it might injure the GT before it dies. Aggressive fish should not be kept with defensive fish because life for the defensive fish just becomes a daily sufference of abuse, then one day it either wanes or explodes in fury. I dont think id enter into a fishkeeping combo where there might only be 5% chance of it going well. To even try in a conscientious way youd need another aquarium on standby.


Ive done the jewel and blue acara thing, and it has worked for short periods, but thats only when the blues arent breeding and in 100 gallon plus aquaria. So thats about 3 days every 3 months when they arent breeding or at least thinking of breeding, lol. If the jewels breed it will be major fireworks. In that situation dont think of it as "working" so much as "they dont run into each other much".

Jewels are best in seperate aquaria, preferably african river biotope with lots of room with fish like medium sized schilbaeidae and no other cichlids around that set them off. Jewels work best in aquaria where other aggressive species dont force them to fight or get overtly territorial. Youll often find a jewel will allow non territorial fish to move freely within a territory when they arent breeding, but put a firemouth or an acara or gt in there thats pushing its weight around, and BOOM.

Yet ive got a very aggressive male krib and some females, a positively evil pseaudocrenilabrus nicholsi with two mates, and a hemichromis guttata pair together in a 75 gallon, and theres no fighting. They communicate the same way , borders are respected when theres fry about, and they arent so heavy on the border control when no-ones breeding, and theres no fighting. IMHO they can be kept in supposedly aggressive community quite peacefully as long as they speak the same language and have territorial room. Put a CA or SA cichlid in there with them and its misery all round.

The american cichlids cant stop being pushy, and the jewels cant stop fighting back. Its like having bruce lee trying to be humble and keep a low profile but not really giving an inch in a cage full of american wrestlers all with something to prove. Best to keep them seperate.

Thanks for the correction LHG

"Its like having bruce lee trying to be humble and keep a low profile but not really giving an inch in a cage full of american wrestlers all with something to prove"

That was priceless LOL.

The Amazon Nut...

OK guys,
"Bruce Lee" is now in a separate smaller tank by himself until I decide what to do with him. I can't afford to get a 3rd 55g tank(especially with All the support equipment!) for just Africans right now.

But I had to get him out of the SA tank...as you guys told me, because he was not defensive at all...and terrorizing all the others(except Bristlenose)nonstop. And tailfins of the others where getting ragged from chasing/nipping by the jewel.

Too bad...such an extremely colorful brilliant red fish.
Now I've just got 4 fish in the tank (a pleco, Blue Acara, confict and the GT). I guys now I don't need to be that conserned with getting an Eartheater of moderate size.

Thank you all
(you were right, Of Course!)
dS

Yeah , thats the way it goes, they can be peaceful, but the american cichlids really hack them off, they see the american cichlids behaviour as aggressive and threatening all the time, and a jewel being a jewel is going to do something about that.Its really not their fault, its just that we stupid humans dont largely appreciate the subtleties of communication between fish, The jewel probably feels threatened all the time and is getting paranoid and violent.Jewels are often more able in defence than most american cichlids ar in full on attack, Saw a video on youtube of one losing it after being hassled by a flowerhorn, and it was liplocking it and everything. Suicidally brave little fish.

If you still want an eatheater , maybe get a jurupari, they are more laid back than most. Plus youll need it to resist that GT when that too starts making a pain in the backside of itself, so it being a little bigger will probably help.

Thanks,
Well, since the GT gets huge, I'm really thinking of taking it back or giving it away.

I would much rather have my 55g tank full of a bunch of more "medium sized" colorful fish, than just very few, and one mean Whopper in the tank.
(the more colorful fish the better...without going "Dwarf"...although, I'm even temptered to do that to get more fish)

Anyway, for a moderately sized eartheater, what about a "geophagus iporangensis"? (supposed to get only 10cm !)

http://www.jjphoto.dk/fish_archive/aquarium/geophagus_iporangensis.htm

Nice fish, but it will probably midwater feed.

Saw this post had to comment on something I say at my LFS.

I noticed they have signs up suggesting that you CAN mix African's with SA Cichlids (amongst other fish). Kind of done in a "not just African's' advertisement pitch.

Some of the stuff listed was spot on - syno cats, pleco's, - but the suggestion of Jack Dempseys, Terrors, Talpia's etc - I was confused.

I asked the staff if it was true, and they kind of avoided answering the question, saying the don't advise it, but you could get lucky.

Couldn't figure out WHY the store would advertise this, other than to sell fish - but at what cost to the consumer? I have a hard enough time mixing AFricans amongst themselves!!!!

Anyways - just found that interesting. I have yet to find anyone tell me that mixing is a good idea.

72G Bowfront. 1 Sunshine Peacock, 2 Yellow Labs, 1 Ps. Elongatus, 1 Blue Ahli, 1 Red Kadanga, 1 Mel. Exasperatus, 1 metriaclima emmiltos, 1 Ancistrus.

14.5G 4 Neon Tetras.

Simple reason for that, probably along the lines of some schmuck in charge of advertising asked some random drunk idiot down the pub , who professes to know everything about fish , and was too stupid to realise he didnt really know anything.

Lots of people have done it, good or bad, mostly bad, and word spreads. It only takes one lynchpin example of one idiot having got lucky with an unusually placid specimen and word spreads like wildfire as people rush headlong into disaster trying to replicate the combination. Generally its not a sane thing to do, but people do it all the same.

Theres people out there with a few smaller fish in with big cats and piranha, theres peaceful fish having cichlids inflicted on them because of the oft touted and usually abusive "dither principle" and of course many of the people attracted to cichlids are just beginners with cash, and they make all thesorts of compatability mistakes youd expect, yet tout amazing results that are usually little more than temproary ceasefires or one species kept so far outside of its appropriate ph range its gill tissue is compromised and the fish has neither the energy to behave normally and fight, nor live very long.

Mixing africans and south american cichlids is pretty dumb primarily because of aggression issues, mixing rift fish with river fish is dumb because theres aggression and ph issues that make fish ill, and knock years of their lives and have a high initial introduction deathrate anyway.

Some african cats and cichlids can be mixed with reasonable safety though, cats are cats and cichlids are cichlids and they dont really communicate and depending on the aggression level the catfish may be ignored, and many synos etc can be very tolerant about water ph and hardness ,there are many of the same species of syno catfish living in both rivers and the great hardwater lakes, as individual species they are more ph tolerant than most cichlids, but a cichlid in the wrong ph will do poorly and usually fight in the wrong community.

So there is some scope for more unusual combinations as long as its not actually the cichlids finding themselves displaced into the wrong ecosystem in the wrong company, cats are often more adaptable. Schilbe cats work well in amazon river setups, theyre non aggressive, and dont set other fish off, but you couldnt expect a jewel cichlid to follow them there. A river syno might make the transition to a rift setup having been a river fish, but you put an american convict in there, or again a river cichlid like a jewel, and it will kick off, then suffer metabolic issues from the wrong ph.You wouldnt put the schilbe , a river fish in the rift setup either.

You might even find that a tiny african river mouthbrooder like a pseaudocrenilabrus might do ok in an amazon community that is large and excludes other small cichlids, it wont take on anything 300% of its own size, and indeed it might do better in an amazon setup than some numpty expecting it to survive in a hardwater rift lake setup,but you stick it in with rams and there will be bloody murder.

Generally though midsize cichlids from different continents all fight like hell though, and its never a good idea to mix them. Cichlids , puffers, piranhas, you always try to get the same selection of idiots trying to promote it as do-able, an TBH global survival rates under such attempts will be less than maybe 5% . Its poor fishkeeping, and approach anyone recommending such mixes with immediate suspicion and more than a touch of derision. They take a lucky event , and expect it to apply to the mainstream, which of course it doesnt, at least not without massively increased death and abusive care rates.

This hobby has its idiots. Legions of them, and lets not pretend the avergae petstore cares if your fish even lives let alone is happy or not, most are in it for the cash and if that means getting people to buy inappropriate fish for their highly regional tank, they will do it. Money and honesty are poor bedfellows. Petstores will take the advice of some schmuck cichlid mixer, usually an untested new member of staff who has kept cichlids and "therefore must be an expert" and run and run with it, all in the name of profit. Its all very cheap and nasty, and more than a little low. Its a poor staff/poor management skills issue, and because many large pet stores have seriously lacking interview skills and people conducting interview with no fishkeeping skill of their own, the ambitious newbie slips through the net and gets a chance to spread rubbish. Its all about a poor quality peer group being part of many a shop culture, and of course for the consumer, the advice coming from a peer group like that, often corrupted my managerial influence in regard to rampant profiteering is worse than useless, and often very dangerous.

TBH there are plenty of cichlids even from the same ecosystem that wont mix, many in a mix are living on borrowed time,and cichlid keeping requires that sort of attention to fish behaviour for the keeper to be truly successful. To mix aggressive and semi-aggressive fish from different continents only compounds the problem, and perhaps takes you further away from excellence.


Your petstore is just another petstore who hasnt really looked accurately at the problem at hand. Dont take them seriously, its all stupid advice theyre giving, probably based on the advice of someone who doesnt know as much as he thinks he does. Its common enough. The human race needs very little encouragement to become immorally stupid in the face of what I suppose is thinking that a person is a bit of a fishkeeping pioneer, when in reality its all been done before, and all theyre really doing is repeating mistakes of the past.

The sort of advice theyre advocating is a bit like einstein creating a the rules for atomic physics not realising the end result is the nuclear bomb, or the guy inventing the internal combustion engine and use of lead in fuel not realising he would eventually become a lynchpin in the pollution of the environment and the systemic poisoning of millions of people.

A dumb piece of poorly considered advertising like that could cause numerous communities of fish to be destroyed, made unharmonius, and destroy the life quality of many fish, and of course its a royal pain the butt, being seen as a bit of a cichlid militant to have to keep correcting that shoddy advice in forums. I really wish petstores wouldnt do that kind of thing, it just creates chaos, they should act more responsibly.

Nothing worse in this hobby than a naive beginner or a faux "expert" in a public facing situation like a petstore or indeed on a net forum, it can cause loads of damage, and make fish abusers out of people who had no such intention. And as for the disease implications of mixing species from different continents, well, I could write a 150 page essay on that... im not even gonna get into it!


Long and short of it, ignore the silly buggers! And remember the basic principles and youll not go far wrong. Its incredibly basic stuff.

1) Low ph river species belong in river setups, not high ph rift lakes, and if going into low ph lake setups they should have extra O2 provision, ergo lake and swamp fish can tolerate higher o2 levels as long as the ph is right, but river fish with a high metabolic need for o2 cant tolerate lower o2 levels without getting metabolic health issues, immuno loss etc. You might get away with mixing african kribs and a few small species of american cichlids in roomy aquaria, but even then its dicey. You really wouldnt want the risk of mixing larger more aggressive transcontinental species.

2) Soft lake fish belong in soft lakes, ie , not rift. They will find the high ph and higher o2 expected of rift aquaria in combo a severe risk of osmotic shock, and it will probably cause gastrointestinal isses associated with maldigestion and an abnormally accelerated metabolism, which is again compounded by the gill slime response in high ph, and that even affects the renal system because respiriatory wastes are not efficiently vented, often causing long term kidney failure. Some catfish will be an exception, but not the cichlids.

3) Rift lake cichlids from malawi, victoria, and tanganyika should be in high ph rift aquaria designed specifically for them, they should NEVER end up in amazon river, softwater low ph systems, or mixed with cichlids from anywhere else. There are cats and even a few momyrids, etc that might be able to go with them.

4)Its highly desireable to keep rift aquaria accurate to avoid many problems. Ideally keep them lake specific. Have a malawi setup, or a tanganyika setup, or a victorian setup. When you see how some of these cichlids react to each other, especially some victorians which can be especially aggressive powerhouses youll wish by and large that you hadnt mixed them. Plus of course the coinneseur appreciates accuracy. Whats the point of having cichlids that thanks to overfishing and the introduction of nile perch etc are increasingly on the edge of survival and of unknown rarity, therefore should be given respect, and enjoyed responsibly, if they are then treated as unspecial enough that they are just thrown into a transcontinental mix, and have to tolerate risked health from inappropriate diet, stress, poor water quality provision and increased disease rates? A keeper of taste would never do this, its a deeply flawed beginner outlook.

LHG, layin it down like it is.lol.

Lets get the beginners clear on what the mess of modern cichlid keeping has become, and how to avoid the mistakes of those perhaps not ready to appreciate them or take them on properly. Are there a few small species that can be mixed? Well yes, but they are in the vast minority and comprise of very few species, and the results are highly variable, its always a risk.

Cichlids mixed transcontinentally as a general outlook? Well, im afraid thats catatonically, ridiculously, massively irresponsible, neglectful, blind, and awful fishkeeping, usually abusive, mostly innacurate, and horribly risky in a way that few responsible fishkeepers would willingly accept.


Apologies for the huge post, but its a complex issue,and BS'ers on the subject are legion, and I hope I have given you a good perspective to run with. Main thing to remember is that a shop that stocks cichlids might not have the vaguest idea what to do with them, half these buggers have trouble looking after goldfish. You cant really look after cichlids properly without knowing the biological and behavioural differences of river fish and lake fish from different regions, and you cant bluff through it, or just assume your way through it. Cichlid keeping takes experience and a lot of reading especially on the subject of catering for their regional needs accurately and theres no shortcut replacement for that.