75 gallon blue acara tank mate

[Nate710]

I have a 75 gallon with 2 blue acaras, 6 black skirt tetras, 4 pictus cats, dwarf gourami, 1 BN pleco. I’d love to get another cichlid if possible but wanted to see what my options are before I blindly go into my LFS. Any recommendations are greatly appreciated! 

[CJs Aquatics]

Perhaps Blood parrots, convicts, or fire mouth cichlids of similar size I would say should work depending on the temperaments of the ones you already have. I am by no means a cichlid expert so take this advice with a grain of salt but given what I have kept and do know I think this could work if done properly, hope this helps…

 

[_Eric_]

There may be some other full size chiclids that could work with the acara but they will cause issues with the other fish.  You may have some issues down the line already with the dwarf gourami and the eba so I wouldn’t push it further with a convict or similar.  Single dwarfs are about as far as I’d go for additional chiclids  and that may not end so well either.

If me, I’d add a few more skirt tetras and then look into some larger schooling fish like cherry barbs, rainbowfish, pencil fish, etc etc.  a group of roseline sharks might work out (do more research) or a pack of Siamese algae eaters would be nice.

my two cents

 

 

 

[Nate710]

On 9/3/2022 at 8:33 AM, _Eric_ said:

There may be some other full size chiclids that could work with the acara but they will cause issues with the other fish.  You may have some issues down the line already with the dwarf gourami and the eba so I wouldn’t push it further with a convict or similar.  Single dwarfs are about as far as I’d go for additional chiclids  and that may not end so well either.

If me, I’d add a few more skirt tetras and then look into some larger schooling fish like cherry barbs, rainbowfish, pencil fish, etc etc.  a group of roseline sharks might work out (do more research) or a pack of Siamese algae eaters would be nice.

my two cents

 

 

 

Thank you! I’ll look into these

[laritheloud]

If you want more cichlids, I'd consider moving your dwarf gourami to another tank. That little guy should do fine in a 10 gallon or larger, preferably at least 15 or 20 gallons to give him more space. You'd have more flexibility with cichlid stocking if you move him. 

As @CJs Aquatics mentioned I would try something like blood parrots or severum (grown out, if you choose to try to introduce only one), which are pretty chill fish. Maybe festivums. Always have a backup plan in place and introduce at least 2 additional cichlids into the tank at the same time to head off the blue acaras from bullying the newcomer.

Edited September 3, 2022 by laritheloud