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Ok I am switching over a 55 gallon tank from the standard tetra/barb tank into a cichlid tank. Moved my other fish around in my other two tanks.

I have never kept cichlid except for a keyhole cichlid.

I am looking for a nice colorful tank with a few species. Anyone have some suggestions on stocking #s and species.

Some of the fish my lfs have are

Yellow labs
Jewels(look real cool)
Auratus
Electric Blue
Red Zebra
Blue Zebra

and a tank that says assorted cichlids what ever that means.


Any suggestions would be great.

there are many diff types of cichlids u could do in that tank but looks like u are leaning to the africans and not the new world cichlids....... thats good cuz most of the more colorful new worlds get to big for ur tank i have said the options many times lately on this site what wouldnt work and what would...... ok so these are the new worlds that are kinda colorful and would work in a 55 gal....... blue acaras, grammodes, salivi, convict cichlid, HRP, severums, rainbow cichlids, chocolate cichlids, festivum, earth eaters, and fire mouths.... thos are the new world cichlidsthat would work........ most african cichlids would work but i need to get the ones from the same lake or there could be aggression problems........ u want to make it so the water is hard and a high ph.... u want to stack the tank with rock but silicone them to eachother...... but thats ony if u want africans....... new worlds are fine in most phs and like driftwood and rocks....