Keeping Cichlids,sa/ca Vs African

[FISHLIPS]

i'de like to start by saying i've never kept African cichlids.

i have several diff. sa/ca cichlids and find them fairly easy to care for, i've read many times about keeping africans is a real challenge with their aggression.I read that keeping only males is easier.Even in the LFS stores they seem to be charging one another constantly and i've seen a few streaded up pretty bad.I think keeping up on maintenance is a full time job with my 100gal & 75gal so dealing with trying to keep the peace seems to me to be an extra pain in the @$$.I do agree that africans have a more colorful bunch to pick from but i would put my geophagus up against any african in the beauty department.Everyone in my tanks is peaceful.....severums like to push their weight around but never any injuries.

[Jayba]

With Africans it depends what you keep. Peacocks are pretty tame. I kept sulphur heads, copadichromis azerues, yellow labs and German reds together and everyone got along just fine. It was a 125 gallon and I think there were about 25 of them in there. I was worried that there could be some hybrid fry so I always let mom spit in the tank, and the babies got eaten. Mbuna or haps can be a handful at times, or eveen a species only tank. Thought about doing it with the azereus bit never did.

[Northranger]

When I started keeping cichlids the best advice I got from the members here was to alter the landscape when ever I added new fish and to use dither fish - top tank level fast swimmers - to distract the cichlids and reduce aggression. I started out using Giant Dianos and now I use Rainbow fish... works great!