# Am I playing with too much fire? (Operation Monster)



## Fire Fish (Sep 23, 2004)

Alright, I am going to be raising, what I feel, are the 4 kings of the New World cichlids and will be tossing them together in a 1000 gallon pond setup.

What are they? Well, here's the list:

1 male jaguar cichlid

1 male red terror

1 male dovii

1 male umbee

I will be growing them out, one by one, starting with the jag. (That may be subject to change if things come up).

Is it asking too much for these 4 fish to be able to coexist in the 1000 gallon setup?

Also, what "dithers", besides the usual convicts (those will be in there too), would be able to hang with these bad boys?

Here is a pic of the jag (hopefully it's a boy like I thought it was):

In the bag.









In his grow out (55 gallons).









Full shot of the grow out:










Here is the temporary pond/pool (currently housing a female red terror, pleco, and 2 giant danios):


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## remarkosmoc (Oct 19, 2005)

Shooting from the hip instinct says no, but 1000g is a lot of space. I'm interested to see what happens. One thing I think worth consideration is rather than growing them out seperately, grow them up together. I've always had better luck with 'childhood friends'.

Good luck please post occasional updates.

opcorn:


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## TheFishGuy (Apr 21, 2005)

My guess would be you'd have better luck in this project if you raised them together. I'm doing the same thing with a much larger group of fish in a 14' tank. Only difference is I'm starting with six of each species and boiling it down to a male of each....


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## Fire Fish (Sep 23, 2004)

I'm getting them according to availability. Every time my lfs gets red terrors in, they almost always turn out to be females. Umbees are close to impossible for my lfs to get a hold of, and I am not yet desperate enough to try to purchase one online from a source like Jeff Rapps especially with the shipping costs right now. I can probably get a dovii male, and grow the two parachromis together seeing as those two may be the most difficult to get to accept one another (parachromis hate otehr parachromis, or so I've seen). I'll be sure to update this thread, or make a new one. Also thinking about adding some viejas or anything that can hang with these bad boys. That also depends on how I upgrade my filtration system though, so I'll keep this updated.


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## TheFishGuy (Apr 21, 2005)

Keep using this thread... I may not find another :lol:


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## Toby_H (Apr 15, 2005)

What are the dimensions of the 100 gal pond? With that much volume it shouldnâ€™t be hard to break it into very large territories while keeping a large open areaâ€¦

I would also stock all the fish at once at allow them to grow up together. I personally would also want to start with multiple of each species to allow myself the freedom to choose the fish that best reflects the qualities I would look for in that species.

Therefore buying small groups of 4 species from the same distributor at the same time may earn a bulk discount, plus you would be able to save with bulk shippingâ€¦


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## spuggychinch (Jun 16, 2008)

Lucky ole you!!! Looks great!!! Keep us post'd!!!
Wish we had the time & Â£'s.....


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## BlackShark11k (Feb 16, 2007)

Raise them up together (if possible)
Put a large rock barrier in one spot as a barrier too maybe.
Etc...

I'm guessing you have one of those intuix pools which would be 10'x30''

If so, you may want to drape some pond liner over it, they can leak...


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## Fire Fish (Sep 23, 2004)

artemis1 said:


> Raise them up together (if possible)
> Put a large rock barrier in one spot as a barrier too maybe.
> Etc...
> 
> ...


 Yeah, I'm going to ask my lfs to order some juvi dovii for me and a few more jags. The deal with fish I've kept, I have found that they grow better when raised by themselves and I am trying to maximize the growth rate with a varied high protein diet and as little stress/ competition from other fish as possible. I just picked the best looking jag out of the 7 that they had at Petsmart. He was the most dominant and largest. Would have been better if I could get him directly from a spawn, then I could really pick out the dominant grow outs which tend to exhibit the best traits and are the healthiest/most active fish.


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## TheFishGuy (Apr 21, 2005)

The problem with raising them seperately is that's all they'll know. They'll be a little less lethal at a young age when choosing their pecking order. If you try to put adults together it could get messy real fast. Then all that work of raising them will be lost in one fail swoop....

Every cichlid reference book I own recommends adding all the cichlids to a tank/pond at the same time at roughly the same age and size and to avoid species that look similar to one another.... I've already put that to the test many times and it works.... for a while...


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## remarkosmoc (Oct 19, 2005)

amen to that. I have surprisingly peaceful combinations of rather bully fish by raising them from juvenile and have found that if and when one dies for whatever reason, he is not replaceable as any replacement won't be accepted. Every few years I sell the contents of the big bad boy tank and get a bunch of new juveniles. Of course that keeps the wife interested as she loves to watch the babies grow.


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## MidNightCowBoy (May 7, 2007)

Gotta agree with placing them all in the pond when they are young. Also many more sightbreaks (rocks/wood) will help with established territories and keeping the peace. If they can always see each other they will always wanna fight!

Almost forgot to mention, a school of tinfoil barbs would make good dithers. They get big and are super quick and spunky! Not only that but a school of them looks pretty slick when they are all healthy and moving about really fast.


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## cage623 (Feb 2, 2008)

I have to agree with everyone else. You would be tons better off if you start them all together at a young age. As you said, you are trying to keep four of the most aggressive cichlids together. This obviously could pose problems, so wouldn't you want to go about it the way that would have the best chance of working out?


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## swamptrout (Jul 2, 2007)

black nasty ?? cubans ??


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## Fire Fish (Sep 23, 2004)

I honestly took all of that into consideration, however, I am not about to buy some fish and have them die on me during the winter cause I f'd up on the green house or the insulation of the pond. That's part of the reason why I'm going to have only a few of them at first. I want to see how they handle the Cali winter here as it often gets down to the 40's. If I notice the temp dropping too much in the pond, I will bring the fish that I currently have, inside.

There's also another reason why I decided to raise the jag first beside it being the cheapest and most available to me. The jag, out of the 4 main fish that I plan to put in the pond, will probably be the least dominant and aggressive one, as much as I hate to say it, due to physical attributes. That means, when I bring in the other 3 fish at about 7-8" while the jag is 12"+, they'll be able to stand him/defend themselves. I also doubt that he would be as persistent as the other fish, at killing the new fish. (Though I'm sure that the tetras that I threw in his tank would disagree with me on that one as they are all now in fish heaven).


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