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I am in the process of reworking my 29 gallon tank. How is this for a stock. Am I over stocking.

1-festivum Cichlid
2-German Ram Cichlids
6-Golden Barbs
4-Bronze Corydoras

I would say you are fine at the moment but anything more than that might be overstocked. Is your tank planted?

Your biggest problem with the current setup is the [festivum. That's a sizeable fish when fully grown. Furthermore, it possesses some peculiarities that make it a candidate for a specialist aquarium - it's a lot shyer then the other former Cichlasoma fishes it was grouped with prior to the Kullander taxonomic revision (it's now known as Mesonauta festivum and has its own separate Genus, which matches what many aquarists have observed - it's always been an 'odd man out' among the former Cichlasomas). Basically, this is a fish that is a candidate for a species aquarium with a group of several of its own kind, and eventually you can expect it to reach 7 inches.

Remove the Festivum and give it a species aquarium with 7 other members of its own species, preferably 55 gallons US and upwards, and it will be a LOT happier. Oh, and it will happily snack on tender aquarium plants too according to some keepers, so make sure any plants in its aquarium are tough and unpalatable!

It's an oddball in many respects - some specimens will get along with Angelfishes (and make a stunning display) while others will beat the Angels to death - it's pot luck with this fish. Some will be inordinately shy and retiring, and unless you plan the aquarium carefully, they'll hide the moment you enter the room, while others will become feisty enough to live with such brusiers as Oscars. It's a fish that seems to have read the textbooks and upon doing so, decided out of sheer bloody mindedness to behave erratically and unpredictably in pursuit of some perverse desire to confound the aquarist! In short, pinning this fish down behaviour wise is likely to be a futile exercise, just watch it and see how it turns out ...

Once your Festivum is rehoused in a better setting, the rest of your stock looks a LOT better in the 29. Be advised that your Gold Barbs are going to place a fairly heavy bioload on your filter despite their small size, because Barbs are, basically, pigs with fins. They're the Labrador Retrievers of the fish world - eat anything and lots of it! With this hearty appetite in relation to their size comes an equally large capacity to pass lots of waste out of the back end ... with the filtration issues arising therefrom. The trick with Barbs is simple - the same trick that dear old William Innes mentioned in his venerable book 70 years ago, namely feed small amounts often. If you let the Barbs gorge until they're bloating, they'll pass partially digested food out of the rear end and your water management will be a good deal harder. It's bad enough with small Barbs like yours - when you see what Tinfoil Barbs are capable of in this department (and at 14 inches, they are BIG Barbs!) then you'll be SO glad you kept small ones!

So, rehouse your Festivum (much as you might not wish to part with it, that might be the best option for the future if you can't construct a larger home for it) and make sure your Gold Barbs don't pig out too often, because they're basically self propelled trash compactors if you let them bolt large amounts of food in one go.

Otherwise, so far, so good.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Thanks for the replies. I have had the festivum for about 2.5 years and it is about 3.5". It is my favorite most active fish. I may try and move him to my 46 gallon tank later. Would he get along well with 4 Keyholes in the 46 gallon?

As for the golden barbs. I thought that a Gold Barb and Golden barb are different species. The golden barbs I am looking at are shaped similiar to the cherry barb. The LFS said they only get 2-3" max. Is this correct. If and when I move my festivum I will probably add a few more bronze corys.

Let me know if the Gold and Golden barbs are the same fish.

Does your Gold Barb look like this fish by any chance?

In which case, whatever it's called, Gold Barb, Golden Barb, it's actually a colour morph of Barbus semifasciolatus, sometimes known by the trade name of Barbus schuberti, which is a junior synonym. This fish is a nice peaceful fish, but like all Barbs, has a big appetite for its size, and so feeding requires some care if it isn't going to gorge and pollute your aquarium.

Just to confuse matters, there is in fact a Golden Dwarf Barb. This fish is barbus gelius, but if you have any of these, count yourself seriously lucky because they're as rare in the trade as the proverbial rocking horse dollop, and you would probably have paid ten times as much for them as you would for the 'standard' Gold Barb! You'll find an excellent illustration of Barbus gelius on this page, in fact one of the best photos I've EVER seen of this fish (it's the 8th photo down the right hand side of the page, but clearly labelled to the left). If you have THIS fish, and you picked up a shoal without remortgaging the house, then you are VERY lucky indeed! Oh, and this latter fish - Barbus gelius - is tiny, it's one of the smallest of all the Barbs, usually struggling to exceed 1.5 inches, so if your fishes are [1] bigger than this, and [2] more like the first fish in appearance, then you have the MUCH commoner semifasciolatus.

The 'Gold Barb' form of semifasciolatus is believed to be a selectively bred form, as the wild fish looks nothing like this - this illustration is of a fish labelled with this name, but which has rather more red on the belly than I've seen in the true 'wild type' fish. However, it DOES have the 'half bands' of black on the sides from which it gets its scientific name - semifasciolatus translates as 'half banded'. These are practically absent in the 'Gold Barb', which instead has varying degrees of irregular black markings on the sides.

Now to your Festivum. Given that Keyhole Cichlids, Cleithracara maronii, are among the most peaceful of all the Cichlids, only being bettered in this regard by Laetacara curviceps and Anomalochromis thomasi (both of which are smaller fishes anyway), it's entirely possible that your Festivum will get along with them. I'd still watch him for signs of fractiousness though. In any case, the more space your Festivum has, the happier he'll be. in a 46, he'll be a good deal happier than in a 29!

One common mistake that many newcomers make is to buy fishes, and put them in an aquarium suitable for them at the size at which the fishes were bought, forgetting that fishes grow! You should always check the full grown adult size of a fish before making a purchasing decision, and if the fish is cited in the literature as reaching an inordinately large size, leave well alone unless you have the space for it. More people adhering to this advice would be better for them and for their fishes! An extreme example, of course, is the Red Tailed Catfish, which rejoices in the wonderful scientific name of Phractocephalus hemioliopterus. The fishes are offered for sale as cute two-inch specimens, but dealers have an unfortunate habit of forgetting to mention that a 2 inch specimen of this fish is a FRY. In the space of a year, this fish grows to TWO FEET, and even at that size it's still a baby! Eventually, a Red Tail Catfish will reach a whopping SIX FEET in length. One that size was recently discovered at a fish market in the Amazon by the staff of Practical Fishkeeping magazine - in Brazil, this is a food fish capable of feeding a family of eight for a fortnight, and a large one is heavy enough to need a small fork lift truck to hoist it out of the water, which should be ample warning to you NEVER to buy this fish unless you have a COLOSSAL aquarium to put it in - basically, an aquarium big enough to house an adult Red Tail is large enough to sail a small boat on!


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002