A Bit Fishy! - How to keep large cichlids

How to Keep Large Cichlids
Tank sizes	Squabbles	Adding fish	Water	Food	Games	Pairings	Health

The rules	The first rule of keeping cichlids is to acknowledge that the rules can be broken! We like to make up rules, and we write them in books, but cichlids don't read books. Of course there are certain rules that have to be obeyed such as: give them water, keep it warm, filter it, give them food, change the water occasionally. That's about it really. Here are my thoughts on how to keep cichlids, and whether you can try to break the 'rules'.
Tank sizes	The common misconception is that large cichlids such as the 'Cichlasoma' types from South America need huge tanks. Suggestions are that you need at least a 5 foot tank to keep them. Rubbish. I've kept a 10 inch Tilapia Mariae (African) in a 16 inch hexagonal tank very successfully for several months during a house move, and a friend 'borrowed' the same tank along with my 8 inch Red Devil for a few weeks. While I agree that this is not ideal none of the fish came to any harm and were perfectly happy creating their usual chaos, piling up the gravel and attacking the filter system. They received plenty of stimulation in the form of human company so I suppose that this is what they thrived on. Don't misunderstand me though. I'm not advocating tiny tanks for large fish, I'm just saying don't go overboard with a huge tank unless you are really committed. It takes ages to clean and change the water for a large tank and it may become too much fuss. This will lead to worse water conditions than for a smaller tank. A smaller tank will happily hold a smaller number of equally large fishes. Don't forget that cichlids tend to be territorial, and if their territory is small they often adapt very well. However, if you want to grow them up to maximum size then the bigger the tank the better the results. You will need to be fairly committed to get a community of very large cichlids and you will probably need a six foot tank or larger. Certainly you would need to aim for 100 gallons or so. My advice is to start smaller and see how you go. Four or five 3 inch cichlasomas will be perfectly happy in a 3 foot tank as long as they get along well. A couple more can be put into a four foot tank. After a year or so you may need to review the situation, depending on how things go. I will be very surprised if, after a year with large interesting fish, you can resist buying a bigger tank for them! The medium sized cichlids such as Nicaraguas can often get by in surprisingly small quarters. I once bred two pairs of fish at the same time in a 36x18x18 inch tank - Severum and Nicaragua. They were quite small individuals, about 4 inches body length, but kept much to themselves. Some fry sometimes 'jumped ship' accidentally though. They had been put together in the hope that they would NOT breed; unfortunately after about a month both pairs laid eggs within a day of each other. If you just want to keep one specimen of a large cichlid then as long as you purchase a smaller fish a 3 foot long tank is fine, possibly even a 2 footer. The fish will get used to the tank and will grow happily. Any more than one fish does depend on whether the fish accept each other. It is a matter of luck keeping these fish together, so it is a case of 'suck it and see' I'm afraid. The rule that you should have hiding holes for the poor fish that always seems to be picked on is certainly a good idea. But if the weakest fish doesn't get bolder and spends most of his day hiding then you may as well take the fish back. It isn't going to have a happy life sulking away, so give it a new home.
Squabbles	Something that you may acquire after keeping cichlids for a long time is the ability to tell posturing and mock fighting from the real thing. I've had several tanks with mixed breeds living together quite happily. Squabbles broke out frequently, so as to reinforce the hierarchy, but rarely was any damage done. But, and its a big but, you need to be very careful and aware of what's going on in the tank because big cichlids can, and will, kill in minutes if they really want to. And don't assume that the biggest, most agressive, fish will win a fight. Cichlids often gang up together, and the singleton can get into trouble quite quickly. A Jaguar of mine once had its bottom lip torn off completely in an hour or two. She took on two others of her own size and found out the hard way that she had 'bitten off more than she could chew'! (Sorry, british slang expression.) It grew back in a couple of months and you wouldn't then know the difference! Once you have a settled community of several cichlids you have usually got a recipe for many years of trouble free fishkeeping. Unfortunately, not always. Just be wary, particularly if you go on holiday and leave the tank to be tended by a friend. The next section attempts to explain how to achieve the impossible. Add new cichlids to an established tank.
Adding fish to a settled community	This is the cichlid owners biggest nightmare. The 'Holy Grail' of fishkeeping - how to add another cichlid to a tank with existing fishes? Well it can be remarkably easy at times. The main secret is to decide if the newcomer will pose a threat to the older fishes' dominance. This is usually, but not always, a question of relative size. Adding a large fish to a smaller one does not always work because the existing one may be extremely protective of his territory and can easily kill a larger newcomer who may be intimidated by the journey and new surroundings. If you must do this make sure the newcomer is about twice the body length of the existing one. Even then don't assume it will work. The easiest technique, generally, is to add a much smaller fish. The existing fish may take one look at him, decide that its no threat to his dominance of the tank, and completely ignore him. Again, you need approximately 2:1 body length ratio. It can be done with more equal sized fish, but it depends very much on the individuals themselves. It goes without saying that the smaller fish must be too big to eat! I have had much success introducing 2 inch and 3 inch fish to an existing 6 incher. Another factor to take into account is whether there is a pair of existing fish. If you like gambling then this adds another dimension to fishkeeping, but I wouldn't recommend it. Keeping a group of mixed cichlids together is possible but not if you've got a mating pair of ten inch jaguars in the tank! Another technique you could try, and I have done so several times with great success, is to introduce several new fish at once. This completely overwhelms the existing fish and it often accepts these quite happily. After a couple of weeks you can gradually start passing on the fish you don't want to friends or sell them back to the shop. My third technique is to set up a new tank and stick all the fish (new and existing) into the tank at once and let them sort themselves out. You can then move them all on to a final destination once they've grown used to each other. This is the technique to use if you must put a matched pair together with others. This is never recommended, but sometimes you are forced to for emergencies, etc. If you've acquired a new fish which is very close in size to an existing one, then as long as you have emergency accomodation the advice is to try it out. You can always remove it again. Sometimes the two fish will get along happily. Watch very closely for warning signs, and preferably, add the fish early in the day. This allows them some hours before nightfall. There is always the possibility that you will find a dead fish in the morning. Usually, if there is to be trouble it will happen immediately. Some lifelong friendships can happen from these meetings. A really good pairing of male and female from different species can sometimes result in 'matings' which although infertile allow the female to lose unwanted eggs. Strange fish these cichlids.
Water changes	The rules state that you must change X% of the water every Y days. Another pinch of salt is needed here. This depends very much on which fish you have and what you want to do with them. Generally, water changes are a good idea but occasionally it is counter productive. Constantly meddling with the water quality will not help your fish and in some cases will be worse than leaving well alone. Severums, for instance, will point blank refuse to breed if you dare to change their water! They have had a reputation for being difficult to breed, but that may be because the water changes upset them. It was certainly the case for my pairs. If they are getting ready to breed then they must be happy, so leave well alone. As they say - if it ain't bust then don't mend it.
Food	Ah, great topic this. Cichlids love food and will generally take anything once settled in a tank. They can be a little slow to eat when first put into a tank but after a day or so there should be no trouble getting them to eat. I believe that most of the American cichlids will take a wide variety of food. Live food, pellet food, or special cichlid food is all gobbled up greedily. However, which is best? A bit of everything I say; although I confess to having given most of my fish no live food at all. Cichlid pellet food of the correct size by a well known brand is usually all that is necessary, although you should vary the diet occasionally or you may have a problem should the product become unavailable in the future. One tip I can give you, especially if you wish to save money (cichlids are greedy) is to feed them good quality Koi food for some of the time. The possible exception is when you are rearing fry. My favourite is to feed them brine shrimp. These are clean, stay alive until they eaten (not long usually) and are quite easy to grow. I put a tea-spoon of the shrimp eggs into a milk bottle with salt water, put the bottle floating in the corner of a warm tank, and pop in an air-line. The next day you have a mass of free-swimming shrimp. Syphon or pour through a strainer and pop them into the tank.
Games cichlids play	Apart from posing, fighting, and breeding, cichlids like to play games. This often takes the form of driving their owners mad, but sometimes they just like to have fun. My first male Jack Dempsey used to knock the heater and make a noise. Hearing this click I used to go to the tank to investigate, and while I was there I would open a food pot and give him some. The trouble is that he soon realised this and deliberately knocked the heater when he wanted food. So I attached the heater in a much more substantial way and that put paid to his tricks, didn't it. No it didn't. There was one of those floating thermometers in the tank and he then used to swim up to it, turn sideways, grip it in his jaws and swim down to the bottom of the tank. At the bottom he let go and it shot up and clattered on the tank cover. One day the thermometer broke, so he had to resort to other techniques to attract my attention. He died at 10 or 11 years old, and the female died soon afterwards. This was quite sad because he was bent double for the last few weeks and couldn't swim. So occasionally the female would push a piece of meat in front of him and he would chew away happily. Once he lost interest in food I called it a day and put him down. Building work is a common cichlid game. They like to shovel up the tank gravel and pile it up the front of the tank. I assume that this is to give them some privacy. But they do this even if they've got a huge piece of slate to hide behind. I suspect they just like to wind me up.
Pairing	Now this is a thorny subject. Watching a pair of two fully grown cichlids is one of the greatest joys of fishkeeping. Unfortunately, just like people, cichlids can have personality clashes. This makes our job as keepers much harder. Even when they like each other they need to go through a ritual punch-up before they will accept each other, and it is very worrying to watch expensive fishes throwing themselves about the tank. Usually they survive happily, but quite often you will have to separate them and try with another pair. The often quoted trick of buying a number of smaller fishes and keeping the two that pair off is a good idea. But if you wish to breed from them it is best to get unrelated fish and then they will have to get to know each other.
Cichlid Health	The largest number of e-mails I receive for this site come from people who are worried because their fish has become ill suddenly and they need help. The fish has got flaky skin, or cloudy eyes, or will not eat. Often this is a month or two after a tank has been set up and the owner asks the shop-keeper what to do. The answer ranges from "The water is too hot (or too cold)" to "You've got parasites/ick, etc" or "Just add salt". This sort of problem is nearly always down to polluted water, and in my experience there are usually two common reasons. One reason is that a smaller less 'showy' fish, such as a suckermouth, has died. The owner has forgotten about the fish, but it is slowly decaying and polluting the water. The other common fault is overfeeding your fish. This is very easy to do if you are not experienced. Cichlids, being very greedy fish by nature will eat whatever you put into their tank, but the filter system may not be able to cope with such a large amount of waste material which will be generated. Once the system breaks down the water quality will become dangerous in a few days. This problem is sometimes caused by not allowing the nitrifying bacteria time to develop sufficiently to take on the task of converting the fish waste from ammonia into nitrites, and then into harmless nitrates. In other words the tank system (water and filter) is still too new. Fish should be fed very little for the first 3 weeks in a newly set up tank. Once a good colony of nitrifying bacteria has been built-up there will only be a need to change small amounts of water to keep the nitrate level acceptably low. Fishes can tolerate a much higher level of nitrates than ammonia or nitrites. If the problem mentioned about should happen to you, then apart from the obvious water changes (up to 25% a day) you should stop feeding the fish for at least a week. Large cichlids can go for at least a month without food, so do not be tempted to feed them until the water quality has improved. When the fishes are looking happier, and want to feed, then slowly introduce food but at a much lower level than they have been used to. I would suggest that about 4 half-inch pellets per day are adequate for a 6-8 inch cichlid. If all is well after a month then this could be increased, but only if the tank is not overstocked. Once your tank is back to normal I would suggest that water changes should only be needed every other month, and then only about 25%. Feed your fish less and water changes are required less! Fish are cold blooded, so they do not need to eat to keep warm. A mouthful a day will be quite sufficient for most fish. If you want to grow your fish quickly then you will need to have a powerful filter system and more regular water changes. I use undergravel filters exclusively, but I am very careful not to overfeed. To use an undergravel filter with cichlids which dig you will need to put netting, or similar, over the gravel layer. Then another inch of gravel and some stones will make the tank look nicer. It won't last long because most south American cichlids will dig down to the netting. Never mind, the water will be clean even if the tank looks a mess!