# Red Jewel Cichlid tank mates



## MarcusasJ (Dec 6, 2021)

Hello, been keeping red jewel cichlids for almost a year now. They had other two tank mates one red zebra and juliochromis, both females, but very agressive. So i gave these two fish away to pet shop. Now I have:
3 red jewels
2 plecos
1 clown loach.
Now tank looks boring, jewels are lazy, just hangs out in one corner. I want to add neon tetras, can i do that or jewels will eat them? if neons are bad idea, what fish could you advice? 
Thank you.


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

Tank dimensions?


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## The Fish Lady (7 mo ago)

MarcusasJ said:


> Hello, been keeping red jewel cichlids for almost a year now. They had other two tank mates one red zebra and juliochromis, both females, but very agressive. So i gave these two fish away to pet shop. Now I have:
> 3 red jewels
> 2 plecos
> 1 clown loach.
> ...


Hi!😃
Are you aware that you little, baby clown loach is going to become rather huge??? This is "why" we haven't purchased one ourselves...😳😳
Okay, your Red Jewels will do awesome with Black Convicts!!😃 we keep them together and they get along just fantastically!!😃😃
Hon, what kind of Plecos? Because if they're American ones, they will also get huge! 😳 I'm speaking from experience, actually! No one informed us when we purchased Kong, that's his name because he's now at about 14 inches long; seriously, he's one of my hubby's favorite specimens!!😂😂😂


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## MarcusasJ (Dec 6, 2021)

Tank dimmemsions are (in inches)
32long~
20 height~
14 width~
I’m from europe so its more accurate to count with metric system.


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## MarcusasJ (Dec 6, 2021)

My baby clown loach not a baby anymore. Hes almost 6months old and very small very shy, though a beautifull fish. (Hes only 1inch long). The plecos are albino they are almost 3yrs old, they havent grown bigger than 4inches maximum. So I dont think that it will grow. bigger. Black cnvicts looks pretty nice, but too much grey and black colors in tank. My red jewels in fact are not red, they are more like blue white grey


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## The Fish Lady (7 mo ago)

MarcusasJ said:


> My baby clown loach not a baby anymore. Hes almost 6months old and very small very shy, though a beautifull fish. (Hes only 1inch long). The plecos are albino they are almost 3yrs old, they havent grown bigger than 4inches maximum. So I dont think that it will grow. bigger. Black cnvicts looks pretty nice, but too much grey and black colors in tank. My red jewels in fact are not red, they are more like blue white grey


Hi!😃
Wow! I've never heard of a clown loach being that small...hmmm...geez, you seem to have "strange" fish in Europe!😂😂
What??? Black Convicts our my 2nd favorite babies!! They get chubby and sooo cute though!😃 but that's up to you, hon!😃


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## MarcusasJ (Dec 6, 2021)

The Fish Lady said:


> Hi!😃
> Wow! I've never heard of a clown loach being that small...hmmm...geez, you seem to have "strange" fish in Europe!😂😂
> What??? Black Convicts our my 2nd favorite babies!! They get chubby and sooo cute though!😃 but that's up to you, hon!😃


Well, I think i saw black convicts at a fish store, they look pretty, maybe I will do them , hope they are peacefull, the fish, which I had before were mega bullies.


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## The Fish Lady (7 mo ago)

MarcusasJ said:


> Well, I think i saw black convicts at a fish store, they look pretty, maybe I will do them , hope they are peacefull, the fish, which I had before were mega bullies.


Hi!😃
They are, actually...they are cute. How many were you thinking on getting? Remember, the females have "red" blotches on their sides; okay?


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## MarcusasJ (Dec 6, 2021)

Hmm I dont know, maybe 3 would be enough, and my jewels are fully grown, dont know how they will respond to newbies, sometimes they turn pretty rude to other fish spiecies. well was… now they are so lazy, they dont even pick up food from sand just waiting for me to drop some more that they can catch . All day they hang out in one place(2 males)


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## Auballagh (Jan 29, 2003)

As spoken to by @The Fish Lady , one or both of your Plecos may get huge. If it is the common or brown Pleco (_Hypostomus plecostomus_) those can easily get past 45cm within two to three years.
They're Tank Busters! 
-
And yes, you could add a Central American Convict to this tank. _Hemichromis sp._, Jewel Cichlid, is sometimes called the 'African Convict' because those substrate spawning, riverine Cichlids display similar behaviors and traits. However.... your concerns over the potential violence that could happen when adding another Cichlid to the tank, are well founded.
The normal _Amatitlania nigrofasciatus_, Black Convict can indeed be an irascible, ill-tempered tank mate when placed in community tanks.
So, I see you have the little Clown Loach in this tank by itself? That's not a good thing! A very social species, the Clown Loach will look and behave best when kept with (many) members of it's own kind. And, if the Jewel Cichlids in there are just basically ignoring that little guy? Put in 4 - 5 more little Clown Loaches in this tank. That will definitely liven things up a bit.
However.... yes, the tank you have is small. And yes, over time those Clown Loaches will outgrow that tank. They are slow growers though.... and have you seen how much the BIG Clown Loaches are sold for ($$$) at the pet store/LFS?!! So, in this case you could look at your smaller tank as a sort of 'grow out' tank for a nice school of Clown Loaches.
And well, if you get too attached to the wee gomerels and don't want to sell the big ones back for a bit of store credit or something? Who knows? Maybe then you'll decide to upgrade to that bigger aquarium!


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## MarcusasJ (Dec 6, 2021)

Auballagh said:


> As spoken to by @The Fish Lady , one or both of your Plecos may get huge. If it is the common or brown Pleco (_Hypostomus plecostomus_) those can easily get past 45cm within two to three years.
> They're Tank Busters!
> -
> And yes, you could add a Central American Convict to this tank. _Hemichromis sp._, Jewel Cichlid, is sometimes called the 'African Convict' because those substrate spawning, riverine Cichlids display similar behaviors and traits. However.... your concerns over the potential violence that could happen when adding another Cichlid to the tank, are well founded.
> ...


Yes, well there were 2 loaches, but one got eaten I guess. This one is very shy but its doing fine on his own. Those two jewels just ignores him hes free to roam everywhere. Those albino plecos are small (white colour). Dont think that they will grow more. So I guess adding tetras is a bad idea overall?


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## Auballagh (Jan 29, 2003)

Tetras aren't a bad choice. However... there are some potential problems with those in your smaller sized tank.
I would NOT stock with the smaller Neons or even Cardinal Tetras in that tank. Esp. since you mention the possibility of a similar sized Clown Loach getting eaten by (probably) one of the Jewel Cichlids.
So, a tougher mid-sized Tetra species such as the Black Widow or possibly even the Serpae Tetra may be a good choice. And though yes, those species are considered 'robust' and can handle some abuse from Cichlids... they are relatively slow swimmers.
Another choice you could consider would be the Giant Danio. This is an Asian species that grows out past 13cm and those things are FAST. Because of that speed, Giant Danios tend to avoid the problems of Cichlid aggression, esp. in larger-sized tanks. Over time, as your Giant Danios grow out you could recycle them for a bit of store credit for a fresh batch of smaller ones (Like the Clown Loach, or just simply upgrade to the larger aquarium. I would stock with 4 - 6 Giant Danios in your tank, and consider bringing back the little Clown Loach if you don't want to get him anymore friends of his own species to play with (Clown Loaches are a highly social loach species).


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## MarcusasJ (Dec 6, 2021)

Yep, Neons was a bad idea. Stocked today 6 of them, now I see only one. Those two fattsos surely ate 5 oft them. No idea when…. All day one dude is always chillin (wiev in photo)


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## Mazan (Dec 15, 2021)

Congo tetras get quite big and are geographically more appropriate as they occur in the same region as jewel cichlids (I don't know if they ever actually occur together but anyway...) Personally I wouldn't risk more cichlids in that size tank.


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## Auballagh (Jan 29, 2003)

Oh. Well then....
_ahem_
A much more piscivorous nature is a definite behavioral difference between the 'African Convict' (Red Jewel Cichlid) and the Central American Black Convict Cichlid. Those riverine _Hemichromis_ types are definitely NOT safe in the tank with anything remotely close to being able to fit into their mouth.
Post up another pic(s) of your Red Jewels. A side shot would be great! There are different ones, and some of the C-F members here like @BC in SK ,@Mr Chromedome or @noki might be able to positively ID what Hemichromis species yours actually are. Plus, well-fed (fat?) Cichlid pics are always kind of awesome to check out.


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## MarcusasJ (Dec 6, 2021)

These two guys are males, they dont fight, both lazy, no idea how they managed to catch fast neons


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## Auballagh (Jan 29, 2003)

Oh yeah.... those good ol' boys have definitely been around awhile. 
Do you have three males in this tank? (A spawning pair would surely put a beat down on everyone in your aquarium).
And well, when it comes to catching live food... I'm not too surprised those guys weren't _QUITE_ as geriatric, as they may have looked!


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## MarcusasJ (Dec 6, 2021)

Well, it's quite a funny story about those three. When I bought them at fish store, I asked for 2females and 1 male. Two days later one male and female started spawning, then other mad predators ate their eggs, like 3 times...
Like a month later. Same female started to spawn eggs with other (which i thoght female) was actually a male. But the eggs were eaten once again, like minum 5 times they spawned.
Then like a year nothing happened, when other 2 female mbunas (red zebra and juliochromis), started to bully these jewels very hard. So I had to take them out to fish shop, because they were too **** agressive.The jewel female was almost beaten up to death. But it lived.
Now, couple days before, i saw her hiding under rocks, now I dont see her anymore... ITS GONE 
And back to Neon tetras. After night in the morning I found only one. 
Should I add some more neons or something? That one little guy wont do fine (I think)


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## Mazan (Dec 15, 2021)

True, but neither will any new ones you add, they will all be eaten! I suggested Congo tetras as they are much bigger, but you would have to find them for sale already at a reasonable size.


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## MarcusasJ (Dec 6, 2021)

Mazan said:


> True, but neither will any new ones you add, they will all be eaten! I suggested Congo tetras as they are much bigger, but you would have to find them for sale already at a reasonable size.


Yes, I was at a fish store, they have about 10 varieties of Tetras, Congo Tetras also, how many I should pick up? They also live in schools of 6?


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

The Congo's ideally would have a 48" tank or larger.


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## MarcusasJ (Dec 6, 2021)

Hello, well I googled it and found that they can be kept even in 20galons. My tank is 33 gals. Maybe a school of six would be ok?


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## Mazan (Dec 15, 2021)

Well yes, they do get to 8cm so I can appreciate that they need a longer tank. maybe it wasn't a good suggestion and some of the shorter deeper bodied tetras would be better, as I think Auballagh suggested.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

The quality of your information is related to the qualifications of your advisor. I went to SeriouslyFish.


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