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I have a 55 gallon aquarium that I am starting over fresh with. I am interested in keeping cichlids of some kind, I have never kept cichlids before so I am just looking for some suggestions on good cichlids to keep (for a beginner to cichlids) and something that will fit in my 55 gallon aquarium. I do have a couple of thoughts:

1. 6 x Electric Yellows

2. 1 x Green Severum

I do like the Kennyi cichlids but I don't know how many I should keep or if I could add a couple with the electric yellows.

I am open to other suggestions!!

Thanks in advance for any help!

Both those are very nice fish and ive kept both before. It all depends on what you want to house with them. Granted severums are awesome fish im sure you want more then just that in your tank. Electric yellows do look good with alot of rocks in a species tank. But will also do well with alot of the other africans.

If you do get yellows, you could mix pseudotropheus acei with them. I got that mix in my tank.

I used to have a green severum that came with the fish tank I bought on ebay, my dad would hand feed it. But I personally like the appearance of Africans more though, so I sold the severum to the LFS eventually.

I think I am going to go with the 6 electric yellows. After that is going for a while, if it's going good I will add something else.

But I have one more question....is it ok if I keep my Pictus Catfish with the Electric Yellows??

Thanks for all of your help!

The pictus cat should be fine. I have a friend that has two pims with his electric yellows.

As for the fish you choose, what is your water parameters out of your tap? The ph, and the hardness, can be important to many types of cichlids.

As for mixing them, my suggestion is that you choose fish that are from the same area, and not mix those of different origins. The reasons are, they have different communications than each other, and they come from different water parameters. Don't use entire continents as your choose either, as they have different water parameters through out them. Such as Africa. If looking at cichlids from Africa, choose fish that are from the same rift lake, or from West Africa. As the rift lakes are very high in hardness, and high ph. Where as the West Africans are low in hardness and low in ph.

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