# Demasoni Tankmates and tank limits



## Newfishlover

I have a tank that i just finished putting a background in but found out most of the cichlids that were given to me are hybrids so I am looking into getting some new more colorful fish. I like the look of Demasoni but was wondering how many to get and what i can put with them. My tank is 48x24hx18. I would lke to make it quite colorful.


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## Dego510

It's often said that you should have at least 12 demasoni or you will end up with only one due to aggression. I recommend starting with 20 and removing troublemakers or sub-dominant males that are getting picked on. A demasoni and yellow lab tank is popular and looks great. That's what i currently have and am looking to add some albino socolofi.


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## cjacob316

all three would be a decent mix, you can add a 4th species if you can find something that looks different from all those fish


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## Newfishlover

Ok now that that part is sorted out what would be my limit on those types in a tank that size, also i have a DIY BG an plan on doing a bunch of DIY caves


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## Newfishlover

Owould an apistogramma be safe in there aswell?


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## cjacob316

no


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## Newfishlover

ok thats that lol. Ok so I am going around to all of my LFS trying to see who will get me best deal, im thinking of starting out with 20 demasoni 10 yellow lab and 10 Albino soco and weeding out the overly aggressive and the really weak, now how is that for numbers?

Also could i replace the Socolofi with Kribs or something more colorful?


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## Newfishlover

anyone?


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## slowlips

Your numbers look good untill they grow little bigger.You can weed out extra males and try get the final combination to 14-16 dems,6-8 labs and 5-6 socolofi.


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## shaguars7

kribs would not be a good choice for there from a different lake. if you want more colour then you should go with dems and labs and greshakei


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## Newfishlover

for greshakei which one woud you mean, i did a google image search and a bunch of dif ones came up


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## cjacob316

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/species.php?id=794
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/species.php?id=2317

either one, it's all about preference


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## beachtan

Demasoni can be difficult. I recently added 4 demasoni to a 40gal long with acei & yellow labs and they almost killed eachother. left the yellows and acei alone, but I ended up with 3 dems in breeder nets healing their missing tails!! Then I purchased 4 more demasoni for a total of 8, let all of them out of the nets (being somewhat healed) and now they are all doing well. Tails grew back. But I may just be lucky with so few demasoni (8). I had to give them time to sort it out. Took a month.


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## scrubjay

beachtan said:


> Demasoni can be difficult. I recently added 4 demasoni to a 40gal long with acei & yellow labs and they almost killed eachother. left the yellows and acei alone, but I ended up with 3 dems in breeder nets healing their missing tails!! Then I purchased 4 more demasoni for a total of 8, let all of them out of the nets (being somewhat healed) and now they are all doing well. Tails grew back. But I may just be lucky with so few demasoni (8). I had to give them time to sort it out. Took a month.


I guess that's more support for the advice that getting a dozen or more demasoni to spread out the aggression is a good idea. A nice experiment, even if unintentional.


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## beachtan

Left for a weekend away and came back to find dead & missing demasoni.  
I'm done with those guys!! Trying to find some cynotilapia with similar coloring instead...


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