# African Cichlid help



## M5Pentagon (Nov 18, 2013)

Hello,
I'm new to this forum so go please easy on me.

I've had a tank for around 4 years now and have been experimenting in many ways in that time.

My tank is 6ft x 2ft x 2ft, with a huge (mahusive) external filter with 4 stage filtration and UV, 2 extremely large power heads used only to oxygenate the water and exercise my fish, and stocked as follows:

1 of 10 inch Pleco
2 of 6 inch Pleco
1 of 3 inch Pleco
2 of 4 inch Slider Turtles
1 of 8 inch Shovel Nose Lima Catfish
1 of 9 inch Senegal Bichir (Polypterus senegalus)
2 of 3 inch Silver Dollar
3 of 6 inch Tin Foil Barb
3 of 3 inch Tin Foil Barb

These fish (and Turtles) have cohabitated quite happily together, but I have recently felt that my tank lacks colours / diversity of colours I would like it to have, so I've started looking at perhaps introducing African Cichlids.

I realise that my Tin Foil Barbs will definitely have to go and perhaps even my Silver Dollars, but is there any way I could keep the rest of the community?

Any helpful advice together with suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks in advance.
:-?


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## cichliddoc (Oct 15, 2013)

:-? Hey I hate to tell but I don't think it will work with African cichlids;size, aggressive behavior, and not to mention hardness/temp./etc. Maybe Central American or south american?


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## ILCichlid (Feb 27, 2012)

You might be able to get Africans to survive but they wouldn't be happy or healthy. They require different conditions than the rest of your tank and wouldn't thrive.


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## M5Pentagon (Nov 18, 2013)

Hey,
thanks for that guys, but is there any part of my community at all that could stay or does everything have to go?


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## Michael_S (Aug 18, 2013)

Plecos can possibly stay. Some people have great success with having them with Africans and others have miserable failures. I gave up on trying it after multiple fails, the Africans would feast on the docile pleco. Its worth the try, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.


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## M5Pentagon (Nov 18, 2013)

Michael_S said:


> Plecos can possibly stay. Some people have great success with having them with Africans and others have miserable failures. I gave up on trying it after multiple fails, the Africans would feast on the docile pleco. Its worth the try, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.


Wow!
Plecos are like, amour plated. Would it really be as bad as that? :-?


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## chopsteeks (Jul 23, 2013)

Only problem I had with cichlids + plecos --- Made a dumb decision to put a bite size pleco with 6-7 inch Frontosas. Otherwise no issues at all with Mbuna (dems, zebras and labs), Haps and Peacocks.


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## Michael_S (Aug 18, 2013)

My bumblebees, red zebras and saulosi ripped all my previous plecos to shreds unless I saved the pleco in time.


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## M5Pentagon (Nov 18, 2013)

Michael_S said:


> My bumblebees, red zebras and saulosi ripped all my previous plecos to shreds unless I saved the pleco in time.


Cor blimey!
Back to ye ol' drawing board then - thanks for your help guys.

:thumb:


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## ILCichlid (Feb 27, 2012)

Michael_S said:


> My bumblebees, red zebras and saulosi ripped all my previous plecos to shreds unless I saved the pleco in time.


Yep, I have had Yellow Labs kill 3-4 plecos so I stopped trying to introduce them in lol


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## pancakeloach (Feb 4, 2008)

Sounds like it's quite the variation! None of my acei, labs, zebras, callainos, rusties or saulosi has ever given my bristlenose pleco any trouble. Guess I got lucky! *knocks on wood* ^_^;


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