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I have a 55 gallon with three small corys, six large tiger barbs, and have put in four jewels ( each about 2 inches), with the plan to remove two and take them back once a true pair forms. Is this a good plan? The guy at the LFS says a 55 is plenty of room to keep all four. He says my tank is under-stocked anyway. What do you guys think? I am obviously new to the cichlid scene, but so far am loving it.

We keep jewels in with all sorts of other fish, tiger barbs and cories included and never had any bother. The amount of fish is not the problem, the problem is IF you do get a mating pair
Jewels can and will take on anything to protect their young and the tiger barbs and cories wont stand a chance.
My advice would be to either give up on the breeding and just keep 2 same sex jewels in with the barbs and cories and you probably have a happy tank OR just go with the breeding jewels themselves.
And welcome to the joys and agonies of cichlid keeping

Last edited by RustyBlade at 16-Jun-2005 22:05

oh man...I was hoping that the barbs could defend themselves from a pair of jewels if need be. And it seems like I read somewhere that the jewel aggression was basically defensive, and if the barbs stayed out of the way, it would be fine. It seems like a 55 gallon would be large enough...but maybe not. I love the looks of the jewels, and was hoping to witness the parenting display. So, in essense, you are saying one pair to a whole 55 gallon?
Thanks for your first reply, btw.

You are right with the Jewels, they are really beautiful when they breed, the colours are awsome! Ours have bred many times and believe me they get quite aggresive.
Yours may be different though, with fish behavoir you can never be certain But if you do decide to keep them all together, I would have another tank ready just in case they do get as nasty as I think they probably will.

I know it seems such a waste of tank space for 2 fish but believe me if you get a mating pair that tank will fill very quickly with loads of little jewels

It's your decision and all I can do is tell you how our pairs of jewels have been after breeding.
Whichever you choose I wish you luck

Just adding a couple of pictures of ours when they were breeding...

And the fry @ 2 days old....
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I'd definitely be concerned about a breeding pair in your current tank. Even if the barbs managed to stay safe I doubt the cories would.

While individual personalities may differ I think you'll find that with breeding cichlids that swings to the side of being more agressive and protective than less (hope that makes sense )

My male GT guarded the territory, not the fry. When the spouse tried to take a look at the babies the GT would flare and charge the glass.

edit: those are fantastic pics by the way

Last edited by Theresa_M at 17-Jun-2005 09:09

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

Not trying to get any conflicts started, but I've heard that keeping extra jewels in the tank will help keep the bond stronger between the pair, and keep them focused on protecting the fry instead of picking on each other.

Can anyone else confirm this?

No conflict caused inko, everyone has the right to be heard Maybe that worked for someone? It certainly didn't work for us.
We had a 55gal with 2 breeding jewels, they had their first batch and as they got to about 2 months old the parents bred again. I can assure you all hell broke lose and the parents were trying to kill their first batch of fry if they even THOUGHT about going any where near their new babies
We ended up putting a divider in the tank. We've also had other adult jewels in with a breeding pair and again the parents terrorised the other poor fish
This has happened with more than one pair of breeding jewels too so it wasn't a personality type problem.

Personally I would call the jewel cichlids a jekyll and hyde kind of fish and the mr hyde comes out when they breed

Thanks Theresa

Thanks for the info I was gonna go out and buy some more jewels too!