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I was crazy about the Red Jewel cichlid's adult colors and bought one just to have a "seriously red fish" in my SA/CA tank. I had (I guess misread somewhere that it "could be compatible" with my SA/CA cichlids, even though an African....WRONG!

In one day it was beating up all the other fish and chasing them nonstop to nip and dominate/hurt them.

SO,...my question is just that...What SA/CA "medium sized" SA/CA cichlid can I add for bright red color that is not Extremely aggressive, boligerant and Large, as a Red Devil would be, Please?
(Firemouths are only partially red...I'm looking for all, or nearly all red, please)

Are there any?

There are a few american cichlids that do show quite a bit of red colour, though to be as red as a lilifali jewel would be very rare.

All of them tend to need superbly controlled water quality, and none of them will really mix with your GT, being either too small to risk, or too gentle of temperament to mount a decent defence with GTs , acaras etc. Apistogramma species hongsloi, macmasteri, bitaeniata, all have some fairly vibrant red on them, though it might be periodic.

There are of course other species like discus the "brown" phase can actually be very red.

You might find your best bet comes with selectively bred fish like "high red" versions of the chocolate cichlid (Hypselecara coryphaenoides)though tracking one down might be tricky. At 15 cms, they arent too big. Red severums are of course , stunningly beautiful but likely to be a quite chunky fish at full maturity.

Well longhairedgit,
I'm finding that until I get a much larger tank(*someday), I'm having to cull the really agressive fish like the Blue Acara(the current "meanie". with other very aggressive fish that I've "mistakenly purchaced", and religate them to a smaller isolation tank. As I've done with the Convict and Red Jewel.

My GT is only about 5cm long now and not very dominant and fairly timid. I hope to get a larger tank for him (and the Acara...if it survives with the Convict and Jewel long enough for me to gat a 125g tank), when they grow larger.

I'm beginning more and more convinced that Dwarfs are the way I show go in the future...except for the Gymnogeophagus rhabdotus Eartheater that I special ordered from a great small fish store.

I think that is red too, right? (maybe not brilliant, but red, huh?)

Not much red in the body, but the topfin when mature should come up pretty red, yup.

I have mountain shrimp 4" and he's very red