# Jewel cichlids in tank?



## icu (Feb 1, 2010)

I have 55gal tank, 48in. Long. Stocked w/2 yellow labs, 3 Aceis, 3 red zebras, pleco, & jaguar cat. Can I add jewel cichlids? Lfs, said It would work. True?


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## Joseph Masci (Sep 18, 2007)

I had a similar set up and worked fine. The jewels get pretty big, fast, and they hog the food too. Mine weren't anywhere as aggressive though, as people make them out to be. They kept to themselves mostly. My only advice would be not to keep any smaller fish in the tank (under 1.5cm, fry etc) when the jewels get larger. They will consider them food and pursue the smaller fish until it has become dinner. Nom Nom..

One other thing, they were never as pretty as I hoped they would be unfortunately. Pictures you see of them are always bright scarlet red, but my two, especially when larger, almost never showed that kind of colour. They were more of a muddy colour. Meh, still an interesting fish to experience


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

icu said:


> I have 55gal tank, 48in. Long. Stocked w/2 yellow labs, 3 Aceis, 3 red zebras, pleco, & jaguar cat. Can I add jewel cichlids? Lfs, said It would work. True?


Three mbuna species is a good stocking for a 55G. Since they are harem breeders, you will want 1m:4f of each. I would not add fish once you have corrected your ratios. :thumb:

Jewels are fine until they spawn. That's when they try to kill everyone in the tank to protect their babies. Joseph, were yours a pair?


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## icu (Feb 1, 2010)

Thanks for your help..


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## brinkles (Jan 30, 2011)

Never kept them, but don't jewels only color up for spawning?


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## jldean23 (May 11, 2012)

it would be fine no brinkles jewels color up when they want when they get stressed they actually get dark spots on body my big male is with 2 yellow labs and stayes colored up,

icu they are not aggressive at all a lil with another male jewel but there is a but the only way i have been able to sex them is if you have them long enough male will get alot bigger or if you look at back tail fin jewels have round holographic spots all over from experience the male from tip top of tail down all the way to bottom will have red and holographic spots all the way down female will usually fade out spots and red halfway down to 3/4 way down and male and female kinda bond for life stay together they are live bearers not mouth brooders my male and female would have about 500 fry or more never seen nothin like it..

and when they are breeding do not put them in with other fish the male will kill what he can get ahold off and another jewel in the tank he will die unless its a female i have had jewels forever they are beautiful but during breeding time put them in a tank by-themself and go buy some feeder guppies so he can strees them out not the female unluckly i tried to get them to breed again put mirror in tank dropped water for 3 days added cold water to get them to breed female didnt want too guess her cycle was done and he stressed her to death they are very very protective of their fry all my other fished hid or was stuck at the top off the tank hope this helps..


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## Joseph Masci (Sep 18, 2007)

DJRansome said:


> icu said:
> 
> 
> > Jewels are fine until they spawn. That's when they try to kill everyone in the tank to protect their babies. Joseph, were yours a pair?


No, I don't believe they were a pair. They certainly never breed. They did get along fine with each other, as well as the rest of the tank though. I liked them, and this discussion has reignited my curiosity in them! Might be time for a new tank


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

That's the trick. If they don't spawn they are fine. Two males or two females, do you know?


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## jldean23 (May 11, 2012)

if it is 2 males together or 10 males there is absolutly no aggression at none maybe the occasional this is my rock discussion way less than any mbuna but the second a female is in the mix now only when she comes into heat per say then all breaks loose then once the higharchy is established and they form a pair then you have to move them to a separate tank

joseph i know that just sayin if you get into them again watch if you get a female now as i stated earlier when young even mature they are fine my male jewel is huge maybe 4-5 in he has a more aggressive state than before he messes with my large orange lab lol took part off his tail here is one thing...

If you can get a bright red pair of blood jewels and they mate your talkin as in my case 500+ babies and if you want to sell them even a dollar a piece lol will go along way my male is a beauty if i can put a pic up....


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## cichlid-gal (Apr 27, 2012)

icu said:


> I have 55gal tank, 48in. Long. Stocked w/2 yellow labs, 3 Aceis, 3 red zebras, pleco, & jaguar cat. Can I add jewel cichlids? Lfs, said It would work. True?


My experience with jewels...I bought 3 of them originally. Within a month, two of them paired off. At the 1st spawn the male from the pair was chasing and harassing the extra male so much I removed the extra male to another tank which housed mixed mbuna. The standalone male got along fine with my mixed mbuna but his colors never where as bright as the breeding pairs colors and he actually killed a very small fish in my tank (I saw it happen and it was fast), but he never did that again and never bothered any others.

The pair of jewels...they resided in another tank with some peacocks/haps. They did great and never bothered each other. The jewels spawned about every 2 weeks but ate the eggs before they matured totally. I kept hoping they would learn to rear them properly but we never did get any babies from them.

When I reorganized tanks, I put all three jewels back together into a 75G tank together. Overnight the breeding male killed the lone male. The breeding pair were housed with yellow labs, red zebras and auratus. They continued to spawn happily (I created a little area in the tank that was like their old spawning area in their former tank) and never harassed any of the other fish. I never did get any babies from them though only eggs. But they certainly were beautiful fish, very unique in appearance. They have since been rehomed and are doing wonderful but still have not gotten past the point of eating their eggs according to my friend. But she loves them anyway.

I'm not sure about coloration in the jewels if you were to end up with say 2 males or 2 females. At times my lone male would color up but he did not stay colored up like the breeding pair. He tended to be a muddy red color most of the time. The breeding pair though, they would take your breath away when they were in full color, so lovely. Great fish to watch in the tank too, very peaceful, swimming in the mid and top areas of the tank. A nice addition if you can get them to work but as I've shared the mix can bring some problems with it.


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

jldean23 said:


> male and female kinda bond for life stay together they are live bearers not mouth brooders my male and female would have about 500 fry or more never seen nothin like it...


Jewels are substrate spawning egglayers, not live bearers.


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## al7601 (May 10, 2011)

I've kept them before and had a trio, ended up being 1 male and 2 females. All I can tell you is to make sure you don't have any that will pair up because my male took turns with the females and kept on laying eggs and it got nasty. Both the male and female will defend their eggs and fry at all costs. They would take over half of the tank. it wasn't pretty!


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## jldean23 (May 11, 2012)

lol your right fogelhund i was meaning not mouth broaders dont know why i threw in the live bearers!!!

al7601 they are mean during spawning i have done this hobby for years they have the best parental care and safety for their young that i have ever seen in fish and animals and their numbers of fry how they have so many weidly enough i never seen were they put the eggs just one day would see a huge black mass!!!

looked in forum and in post wanted to show pic of male in here but there is no attachment bar to put pic i have seen others with pic is there a way to just post it in here not a url to photobucket??? and went in library nothing on how to post pic on here


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

No, you have to first post with a website like photobucket. The information that tells you that is in a sticky at the top of the Aquatic Photography forum.


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## BC in SK (Aug 11, 2012)

DJRansome said:


> icu said:
> 
> 
> > Jewels are fine until they spawn. That's when they try to kill everyone in the tank to protect their babies.


I really think that depends on a lot of things including tank size, tankmates, size/age of fish ect. And the same thing could be said for just about ANY substrate spawning cichlid. Has not been my experience that they are able to claim alot of space when breeding, let alone kill anything. 
I think I have something to base my opinion on having had 5 pairs over the last 5 years, some purchased, others from my own spawnings, though most ended up being used as feeders. I'm sure I have had well over 10 pairs over about 20 of the last 30 some years.
One of the tougher and more capable of the smaller cichlids, they are sometimes able to use there smaller size as an advantage over some larger fish. But I haven't managed to breed them in a tank with either salvini or auratus and lot's of problems trying to stand up to kenyi as they are not always able to do so. My current male jewel (aprox. 5") is scared out of his wits of my similar sized male convict. My previous male jewel (5 1/8", 56 gram) was running from this male con (4 5/8", 41 grams) after about 20 minutes from the 2 pairs (cons and jewels) being introduced in a 29 gal.(I know silly idea in this size of tank!)...had to move the cons to a different tank. IME, the jewels seem to loose something as they a get a little larger and older!


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## Shahlvah (Dec 28, 2011)

I have 10 red jewels, they are beautiful and most of them red and in full color. I have no clue of how many are male or female, I know one female because she keeps laying eggs on the heater....and the lucipinis eating them. No problem with me since I have them in a community tank. So far they get along well with everyone in the tank, of course, no babies and they are too many, I don't discard the idea that one day they will go wild...then they will be out of my tank as beautiful as they are. but so far they seems "peaceful" they like to hang around the plants and even get in between them and lay there resting, sometimes they lay down low....they put their noses in the sand and shake it around, they look goofy while doing that....they swim face down tail up....crazy fish, fun to look at, but in my mbuna blue paradise, that crazy bright red color with golden / blueish spots it's a very nice adition because of the color.










You can see some in the back of the tank...


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## jldean23 (May 11, 2012)

shahlvah so you are saying she lays eggs but no male fertilizes them? were ever she lays eggs should be a male near her at all times and as i said before only way i can tell male/female is bye their tail male has color and holographic spots female spots and red disapate dissapper halfway down or 3/4 down go to youtube look for jewels breeding or breeding jewel cichlids see pair male will be bigger.

focus on tail you will see the diffrence i tried to vent mine couldnt tell the diffrence between the 2 and if no male fertilized eggs the males might not be mature yet mine didnt breed till he was big 4" till i researched the heck out of diffrences in male and female when i noticed hey every female has less color in tail halfway down there is no color my male is colored on his whole body and tail and when she picks a male no fish will eat the babies he will make sure of that and earlier said they wont kill they will kill another jewel male quick in 2 days stress it to the max as for other cichlids they might not kill but they could stress them to death stress is never a good thing period....


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