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just wondering what would be some good dither fish in general and for a GT?

it really depends on tank size u need dithers that will have enough room to get away or big enough to not get eaten....... but if i had to answer id say tinfoils..............

exactly,if the dither fish do not have "room to run",it will be pointless,the gt will catch them anyway.
eg,the last time i had dither fish,they had 8 feet of room to run from my jag pair,and the dither fish worked very well.
what size tank would the dithers be going in.
as riri said,tin foils are good dither,ive also used silver dollars,ive even used a school of tiger barbs,them little terrors fly around the tank.

well im thinking about puting a school of 6 tinfoils into a a 90 gal im getting then will go into a 12 foot long tank with a school of 8 at my friends tank...... my tanks are usealy grow outs for him.......

well i dont know what size tank yet? i was just doing some research before i got one thats all.. well that makes alot of sense about the room to run part, but does size of dither fish matter aswell? like you had a 20 cm gt and 3 or 4 cm dither fish wont they get eaten anyway? (thats if they get caught?)

on another note i was looking for some bottom feeders for the gt tank, and i seen the pictus catfish and really like the look of it, anyone have any experience with these guys?

cheers willy

i say got with the raphel cat not the pictus cuz the pictus doesnt got the armor like skin that the raphel cat........ if the fish can fit in the gts mouch and it get caught then it will get eaten........

thanks riri1, i will keep that in mind when i start looking in my lfs.. so if i decide to go with a gt and rapheal/pictus cat? maybe two gts(breeding pair hopefully) what would the minimum size tank you guys recommend?
and a rough estamate of set up price? i know thats abit hard but i would like an idea though?

thanks willy

Pictus are schooling fish, you'd need 5-6 of these guys. You'd also need much larger dithers as anything smaller than say 5cm (minimum) is going to get eaten, especially if they're slow.

Additionally pictus have spines in their fins and will require a fine mesh fishnet (not the standard green kind, that will get caught and you'll have to cut it off in order to free the fish ).

I'd actually suggest against these guys for your tank.

^_^

Agree with adams wife.
Catfish are not dither fish anyway.

i know catfish arent dither fish i was just saying to add it as an extra bottom dweller, so there wasnt just one gt in the thats all..

Best choice of dither fish for a Green Terror?

Ideally, a substantial size, and fast swimming.

A good choice to go with a juvenile Green Terror would be Buenos Aires Tetras. These reach a decent size, are colourful, fast swimming, and tough. However, you'd better make sure that the Buenos Aires Tetras have space to reach their full adult size if you're thinking of keeping them with the GT as it reaches adulthood.

A better choice, but one requiring more space still, would be Astyanax mexicanus. These characins live in the wild alongside big Guapotes such as Jaguar Cichlids, and reach 6 inches, so they'll be big enough, fast enough and tough enough to live with the GT long term.

If you have a big enough aquarium, there are slower moving fishes that will live with the GT. I'm thinking here of Leporinus species, which grow to be big (12 inches), and which are almost as hardcore temperament wise as the GT, in fact they might be the ones to start a fight if the mood takes them! However, you'll need a LOT of space to run with Leporinus, and you'll also have to take account of the fact that Leporinus species are jumpers - in fact, they're ICBMs with fins when the mood takes them, and you'll need a heavy duty aquarium hood to keep them from launching themselves into orbit! However, Leporinus are tough enough to live with seriously mean Cichlids, and if the GT decides to pick a fight with them, they're more than capable of standing up for themselves. However, you're looking at something like a 150 gallon tank to provide space for that option, but believe me, the result will be impressive - three big Leporinus fasciatus alongside your GT will make for a conversation starter of an aquarium because the result will be surprisingly colourful for a big fish aquarium.

Of course, if you're looking for something completely different, and don't mind having to sacrifice live fishes to keep them fed, you could also run with Pike Livebearers, Belonesox belizanus, as your dither fish. They're big enough as adults to live with the GT long term, and being aggressive predators themselves, won't stand much nonsense from the GT. Remember, these fishes also share their native waters with big Guapotes (and, for that matter, alligators!) and so integrating them with a GT shouldn't be too much trouble. However, you'll have to breed lots of feeder fish to keep these, because they'll ONLY eat live fishes - they're obligate predators, and weaning them onto dead foods is likely to be a waste of time.

As for catfish to keep with your GT, then chunky Doradid catfishes are the ones to choose. I keep describing these fishes as the M1 Abrams main battle tanks of the aquarium, and when you see how well armoured they are, it's no exaggeration. As well as being covered in bony scutes all over, they are also covered in rows of spines that are like razor wire to handle, and they also have fin spines that make them an extremely tough proposition for anything to pick a fight with. Pick a species that possesses that "chestnut burr with fins" look, one that has visibly sharp "razor wire" spines along its flanks, and this will keep it protected from the GT.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Calilasseia..

thanks for the reply,
my gt is only a juvenile ATM, it is only 4cm roughly. the size tank that i will be getting is a 6x2x2, so romm to swim wont be a worry i dont think, i really like the idea having some leporinus fasciatus in with the gt, any idea on how many i could have in there with it, i would like to get a another gt once i get the tank very shortly.. would they work with doradid cat aswell or would they be too aggressive for it? or if it had enough hiding places would it matter?

any idea on how difficult these fish are to keep and the prices of them? thanks/:'

a school of silver dollars would work well as a dither fish

The difference between 'involvement' and 'commitment' is like an bacon and egg breakfast: the chicken was 'involved' - the pig was 'committed'."

First of all, I'd think very carefully before putting two GTs in there. The usual procedure that Cichlid keepers adopt, if they're intent on keeping more than one individual of an aggressive Ciclhid species, is to put together six juveniles, then wait for the first male/female pair to emerge from the clutch. Once a male/female pair has emerged, then the remaining Cichlids are rehoused, either back to the dealer's or, if you have space, to other aquaria of your own, or to other Cichlid enthusiasts on the lookout for the species you're rearing. Putting just two GTs in right from the start leaves you with the prospect of having two males in there, because determining the gender of your fishes reliably as juveniles is a work of art. If you end up with two males, you'll be looking to rehouse one of them very quickly, before full-blown warfare breaks out and they try to kill each other. Two females together are not quite as bad, but you should still be prepared for combat if you end up with two females!

There are various tricks involved in persuading aggressive Cichlids to live together harmoniously, and one of the tricks centres upon the arrangement of your decor. Basically, toss out of the window the idea of having the aquarium look 'pretty' the way you want it, because you're dealing here with fishes that are highly intelligent, VERY strongly territorial, and if they don't get things their own way, that's when the trouble starts. Basically, the old adage from the venerable Innes book about "thinking like a fish" applies on a grand scale with these fishes, and you have to plan the aquarium around what they want, in order to maximise your changes of success. Big Cichlids tend to like a setup which allows them to find a space they can call their own, and enjoy a little privacy without the neighbours constantly staring at them. Which means that you have to arrange the decor so that lines of sight across the aquarium are broken up, thus ensuring that your Cichlids aren't constantly glowering at each other waiting for the moment to start a fight. That way, you can manage the aggression of your juveniles as they grow, and you stand a reasonable chance of finding the first male/female pair to form before they set about trying to wipe out their siblings.

Additionally, it's wise to have several decor arrangements planned in advance, and be prepared to roll up your sleeves and implement the "Plan B" decor if your original "Plan A" didn't do the trick. Before you put a drop of water in the tank, obtain several nice decent sized pieces of bogwood or Mopani wood, preferably with interesting contortions to them, so that they can be integrated into the aquarium in such a way as to break up the available space into 'privacy zones' that the Cichlids can pick and choose between. If you run with Mopani wood, this is likely to be expensive, but, since you're much more likely to find a piece of Mopani wood that does the job than other pieces of cheaper bogwood, it's worth the expense in the long run, especially if you end up with stackable pieces that can be arranged in a multiplicity of ways Lego style in the aquarium, thus allowing you to implement emergency decor rearrangements as needed. This will also, whilst providing 'privacy zones' for the Cichlids until you grow them up a bit and keep a male/female pair whilst rehousing the remainder, allow you to provide some nice hiding places for a couple of Doradid catfishes, which means that they won't be harassed on a permanent basis even when your male/female pair start thinking about mating. Though when you see that happening, you should then be thinking about providing them with a separate breeding aquarium so that the heat can be taken off your other aquarium inhabitants.

So, once you have the items with which you're going to construct the decor ready, and you've tested out several arrangements in a "dry run" before filling the aquarium, here's the next tip. With the juveniles, don't choose the arrangement you like the look of best to start with. Instead, go with an arrangement that you're not especially fussed about out of your several experimental arrangements, and when you reach the point of rehousing the surplus fishes and keeping your pair, then switch to your favourite arrangement when you're putting the male/female pair in the aquarium together minus the other Cichlids. This way, everyone is back to square one territory wise, and any catfishes can also sort out some new hiding places to keep away from those bad tempered Cichlids. Practice rearranging the decor items before you move on to bringing the aquarium on stream as a 'live' setup, take lots of photos of your different arrangements, ideally with a digital camera, so you can name the files appropriately (e.g., "Setup 1 front view.jpg" ) and have a permanent record of what arrangements involve which bits going where. Don't forget to take shots from above too, so you have a bird's eye view and can see if lines of sight genuinely are broken up with your arrangements. Time spent planning at this stage will almost certainly save you a LOT of headaches later!

Next, stocking order. The way to enhance your chances of success with this setup will be to introduce the Doradid catfishes first, once the filter system is properly cycled and you have your bacteria colony dealing with nitrogenous wastes for you. If you need tips on fishless cycling, I can tell you how to do that too. Once the Doradids have been in for a couple of weeks, and they're settled in nicely, then add your juvenile Leporinus. I'd run with, say, two Doradid catfishes and three Leporinus, and don't exceed those numbers. Then, once that community has settled in for a little while (say another 2 weeks), it's time to add the Cichlids. At this point, you are emarking upon quite an adventure, even with juveniles, as the chances are that your juvenile GTs have been cramped in a dealer aquarium before you picked them up, and are itching to stretch themselves out properly. Whereupon, you bring them home to a 6ft x 2ft x 2ft tank, and they think "Wow, space!". Trouble is, once they've become accustomed to that, and they start growing, the next thing they start thinking about is "Which bit of this tank can I call mine?", and when they start drawing lines in the sand, so to speak, that's when your life as a fishkeeper is going to become interesting, and possibly so in the sense of the old Chinese curse. Which is why I've gone to the trouble of trying to look out for the problems for you before you embark upon this adventure, because trying to sort them out afterwards is a serious cause of migraines for the unprepared fishkeeper. With fishes as intelligent as GTs, with strong personalities, strong territorial instincts, which know what they want, and are prepared to make your life miserable until they get it, pre-empting them by thinking ahead, anticipating what they want, and giving it to them, is likely to lead to a lot fewer headaches and a lot more success for you.

Remember, in the wild, GTs carve out territories that cover something like four square metres of river bed area when they're in mating mood, and you are not going to replicate those space demands in a home aquarium any time soon. However, these fishes are relatively adaptable, and provided that you furnish the aquarium sympathetically to their needs, they'll adapt to living in a 6x2x2 without causing too many headaches. Though, as time passes, you'll probably (and rightly) think that you'd have been better giving them an 8x2x2 to start with, and frankly, if you can do that now, and give them that extra space, then this will go a long way toward reducing or even eliminating future headaches. I'd hold onto your money until you can order an 8x2x2 aquarium, ensure that you have floor joists capable of supporting it (unless of course it's going to be sited on a concrete floor) because once filled, you're looking at over a ton of immovable object. An aquarium that size will also take longer for the fishes to pollute, given the extra volume, and if you can arrange for the setup to have a decent sized power filter attached to it, even better still. Provide the fishes with this, and they'll grow big, be healthy, and have enough space to live in reasonable harmony, and the rend result is going to blow the socks off everyone who sees it even though it's only got 7 fish in it, because the fish will be show stoppers.

Remember that the major problem you will face in the long term is managing the GTs and keeping them stably integrated with the other fishes. You're dealing with an intelligent species, possessing a very strong territorial instinct, which when sexually mature will be highly motivated to get what it wants, exercise considerable ingenuity to achieve this (other Cichlid keepers will tell you never to underestimate the capacity of big Cichlids to embarrass their keepers in this respect) and quite likely, do so in the most headache inducing manner possible if you don't plan ahead for this. The trick with successful fishkeeping is to work out what the fish wants, and how to give the fish what it wants whilst balancing other things such as the health of your wallet, and with big, intelligent Cichlids, the balancing act is made all the more intricate courtesy of the fact that these fishes are more than capable of unloading a world of hurt in your lap if you don't plan ahead before taking them on. Quite a few Cichlid keepers will tell you that these fishes are perfectly capable of outwitting you, should you make the mistake of trying to impose your will on them, this is a battle that they'll win because they've had a good few million years' head start as a species, with respect to getting what they want from life, and they've learned to get what they want in an ecosystem bristling with dangerous adversaries. Remember they share their home waters with Piranhas, Spectacled Cayman, giant otters, giant catfishes such as Piraiba (how does a nine foot long catfish weighing up to 500 pounds grab you?), fang toothed Vampire Characins, Electric Eels that can deliver 900 volt shocks, venomous freshwater Stingrays, and quite a few fish eating birds bringing death from above to the unwary. They've honed their skills at living in this environment over something like 5-10 million years in their present form, and consequently, they're more than adequately equipped to put a fishkeeper in his place.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Calilasseia... WOW, thankyou very much for telling me all the handy little (or big) tips for setting up a gt tank.. i know you had to add a group of cichlids to get a breeding pair though..
im not sure wheather il be getting Leporinus though because i only found one so far in my town and it was about 20cm and like nearly $200, i am very grateful for your help..
i know who to ask if i have any other questions.. il keep you posted on how i go with finding fish and set up and what ever else i can think of..
cheers willy

With respect to Leporinus, if you can find 4-5cm juveniles, here in the UK they sell for around £4.99 each, which is about $7 US at current exchange rates.

By the way, Leporinus fasciatus isn't the only attractive species to look out for, but be careful which one you pick, because some of them grow BIG. Leporinus frederici, for example, is a 20+ inch fish fully grown, and you'll NEED a 250 gallon tank to keep those!

Oh, by the way, if you decide to add any rocks to your setup, make absolutely sure than when they're sited, they're going to stay put. I'm not aware of major digging problems with GTs, they're not to my knowledge listed as being the worst offenders among Cichlids with respect to gravel excavation, but it's wise to expect this with any large Cichlid species, and consequently, the way to go with rocks is to adhere them to a flat slate base before burying the base in the substrate. This rather compromises the efficiency of undergravel filters, though, but you can get around this in an interesting way if you're prepared to engage in some DIY construction.

The trick here is this. You need to devise some way of maintaining water flow to the gravel beneath the slate. Here's where plastic air hose comes in handy.

What you do is this. The following is laborious, but once it's done, you'll have a setup that will allow you to have rocks cemented to a slate base, making it hard for the fishes to dig under them and create a rockfall (with the inevitable disastrous results if the rocks are big) whilst still keeping an undergravel filter as part of your plan. Do the following before cementing your rock to the slate, by the way - it'll be a LOT easier!

Step 1: Obtain some clear plastic tubing of the sort used with air pumps, and some plastic connectors for the air tubing (your LFS should stock these in quantity). In particular, obtain a good number of cross pieces among the connectors.

Step 2: Cut tubing into small pieces of the same length (say, half an inch).

Step 3: Using an appropriate tool, bore side holes in the bits of air tubing. Make sure that the holes are a decent size.

Step 4: Now construct a lattice of your bits of tubing using the cross connectors.

Step 5: Now connect some more short bits of tubing to connectors at one side of the lattice. These will be your entry ports to the lattice.

Step 6: drill some holes in the slate, located so that when you site the rock it's cemented to in the aquarium, the hole is at the back out of sight. Line up these holes so that the entry ports you connected to your lattice in step 5 above will fit through them. Don't forget to mount the slate properly in a drill vice and wear safety goggles when doing this! Use a hard masonry drill bit for the purpose.

Step 7: Push the entry ports through the holes, and silicone seal them in place.

Step 8: Once the sealant is dry (leave for 48 hours to be safe), you can bend the lattice into place, and use more sealant to hold it in place in a roughly horizontal position under the slate.

Step 9: Once the whole affair is sealed and cemented, now you can cement your rock to the upperside of the slate.

Step 10: Bury the slate under your gravel, making sure that the entry port tubes you fitted to the slate are poking up a little way above the gravel.

Now, what should happen is that the powerhead you drive your undergravel filter with should be powerful enough to draw a current through the tubing, ensuring that the gravel under the slate base receives its share of oxygenated water. If the Cichlids start digging, they'll hit solid rock (i.e., the slate base) and be unable to topple your rock.

This sounds horribly complicated, but it'll allow you to have a decent gravel bed in your aquarium if you want it, and an undergravel filter as well, without creating a large "dead spot" in the filter bed under the slate.

If you're handy enough at DIY, you could even rig up a system that pumps water through the tubing from another powerhead. If you have several such rocks, you could give them all the same treatment and link them up for the purpose. Basically, in the planning stage before you fill the aquarium, you can devise such a system by working out where all the tubing is going to go while the construction of the system is easy and involves no wet mess.

An even easier method would be to construct a lattice of siphon hose, again with holes bored in the connected bits of tubing at regular intervals, connect this to a powerhead sited at the back of the aquarium that drives oxygenated water through the lattice, and simply site rocks cemented to slate on top of the pipework lattice. That should stop any dead spots from appearing in your undergravel filter regardless of what you put on top of the gravel. With that sort of system, you can have a deep gravel bed and a working UGF without worrying about dead spots, and it will give you in addition a built in gravel vac by the simple expedient of connecting the powerhead the other way round and reversing the flow when you switch it on. Voila, Cichlid proof cemented rock can now be compatible with a UGF.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

ok so i found some juvi Leporinus, but they were still 43 each, why so dear? anyway at least i know where i can get them from.. all i have to do now is wait for my tank..

Forty three dollars apiece for juvenile Leporinus?

Yikes. Remind me not to buy those fish from a US dealer!

At those prices, if you could wangle the air fare from someone to come here to the UK, buy a couple of dozen juveniles at £4.99 each, then take them back, you could make a very handsome profit!

Oh, by the way, there are two species that are very similar, and you can only reliably tell them apart when they are adult. Leporinus fasciatus has a lookalike, known as Leporinus affinis. From the standpoint of maintenance, they're indistinguishable too, both being 12 inch fishes as adults, tough enough to live with big Cichlids, and rocket propelled jumpers. However, there are differences. Leporinus fasciatus has relatively rounded caudal fin lobes, whilst Leporinus affinis has more angular, pointed caudal fin lobes. Additionally, the number of stripes on a fully ground adult is different - fasciatus ends up with a total of 10 stripes, whilst affinis ends up with nine. The number of stripes increases with age - you will see an existing stripe on one of these fishes divide over time into two stripes as the fish grows (in both species), but fasciatus will eventually acquire that all-important 10th stripe that separates it from affinis. Also, some specimens of affinis develop a red colouration on the underside of the head, vaguely reminiscent of the red chin of a Firemouth Cichlid, but nowhere near as intense.

Oh, by the way, chances are you won't have plants as a high priority item of furnishing in an aquarium with Green Terrors in, but if you do run with any plants, make sure that they're tough ones, not just because of the likely attentions they'll suffer from the GTs. Delicate plants will be turned into an expensive salad banquet by Leporinus species, however, I'm told that they'll avoid Java Ferns as being unpalatable, which is handy, because you can grow Java Ferns on bogwood, and use them to assist in breaking up lines of sight between the Cichlids. How long they'll last once the Cichlids are adult is debatable, but you can try them, and you might get lucky and have GTs that don't mind the Java Ferns, which will help considerably with the matter of keeping them from glowering at each other once they set up territories.

Incidentally, if you do decide to run with Leporinus as your dither fish for the GTs, despite the hideous expense you've quoted for them (forty three dollars ... that's the sort of money that we pay over here for Denison's Barbs, and that's for a pair), be advised that they also grow FAST. They'll outpace your GTs initially, which means that your juvenile GTs won't be the kings of the tank to start with, and only later, once they start acquiring some body mass, will the GTs be in a position to become more assertive. Which is probably a good thing, and may help the task of managing their strong territorial instincts if they start off being the underdogs in the tank. Of course, that could change VERY quickly once they GTs think about breeding, whereupon you'll soon learn why they're called Green Terrors!

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

i know thats what i was thinking, but im in AUS not the US, i cant think of anf plausable reason why they are so dear here when they're only $5 over there.. i might look into getting some shipped over and make some money lol? or just get them shipped over from the uk and still be cheaper then buying them from that pet store, i will ask around abit more and see how much other fish stores could get them for otherwise i might have to give them a miss for this set up after all? the only plants i would have is anubus and maybe some java fern.. we'll have to see what i can find.. thanks
willy

Ah, forgot to look at the little flags.

There's a reason why they're so expensive in Australia - the extra-strict rules that the Australian government has on importations of potential alien invaders to native habitats. Leporinus species are well and truly capable of making their home in numerous Australian watercourses, and they would constitute a severe threat to indigenous species if they did, given their fecundity and aggressively competitive nature. There will, as a result, be strict import limits on these fishes, and that will drive the price up a LOT.

Fortunately, this problem doesn't arise in the UK - the first appearance of a winter frost would wipe them all out if any did manage to survive in a UK watercourse during the summer months. However, we have import restrictions on the Bitterling, Rhodeus sericeus, for the same reason - they can survive in our waters and are considered a possible threat to indigenous species (what few we have here!). If I want to keep Bitterlings, let alone breed them, I need a licence from DEFRA.

Incidentally, I would have thought the same restrictions applied to your Green Terrors, driving their price up too. How much do you pay for Green Terrors in Australia? Here, I can obtain 1.5 inch juveniles for around £6 each, with prices rising fairly sharply for larger specimens because in the main, only the hardcore Cichlid enthusiasts are interested in obtaining larger specimens, and only then when they're looking to try and pair up a bereaved individual in their own aquaria with a new partner, an exercise that itself is fraught with problems, as quite a few of the Cichlid fans here will readily explain.

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002