I've been looking at the cookie-cutter setups over at www.cichlid-forum.com, and they seem hugely biased against South American setups, with little or no variety - does anyone know of any other good sources for this type of info?

Thanks.

Cookie-cutter setups? What are they then?

Sample setups that show good compatible example stockings of fish in various different sized tanks.

They are a suggestion of what to stock in a tank, eg. it will give like 5 combinations of Central american cichlids for a 55 gallon tank (and other tank sizes). To help people get started.

Why not post in the New World Cichlid section here and give your tank stats, I'm sure they'd love to give you suggestions.

Cichlid forum cookie cutters list commonly found fish that are fairly easy for beginner cichlid enthusiasts. I'm not aware of another site that has the same type of setup suggestions.

Thats interesting, ive not heard that phrase before.
If you dont want SA cichlids, what sort do you want? If its CAs, do you want a big presonallity, or something that will cohabit with other fish?

Thanks folks - I was mainly after the list for some inspiration.

I know I want to do a SA tank, and I would like a fair mix of types as much as possible - I'm not much of a fan of having just a few specimen fish, although I love Sevs. I'd want a smallish plec in there, something that will stand up to the cichlids without difficulty.

When the tank is finished, it'll be a 260L (70G) bow front, 4' tank, pH around 7.5, water moderately hard. Dark sand substrate, rock.

Is that a Juwel Vision 260? They are only 13" wide at the ends which makes it difficult to have larger fish. A severum will be borderline, I saw an adult severum at my LFS and it just put into perspective how chunky these fish are, so if you do go with a severum only get 1. Have the small plec and say a school of deep bodied tetras.

I would also have bogwood in the tank, make it look more 'amazonion' and help lower the pH and soften the water, but plants will be hit and miss with a severum.

It's a Fluval Vicenza 260, but the dimensions are pretty similar. As I said, I love sevs, but I think the tank just isn't the right size/shape, so I'd probably be looking for smaller fish.

If you really want to go with a lot of different specimens I would recommend going with smaller peaceful species. If you want to witness breeding behavior however, keep in mind that nearly all cichlids get very nasty while breeding and stock accordingly. Also find that even my "peaceful" Keyhole is not especially fond of other fish, especially bottom dwellers, near his home...but will allow rams to hang around with it. *shrug* I'm not suggesting that all of these will get along together, but here are some interesting suggestions. Warning: some of these may be hard to find:

Mikrogeophagus altispinosus aka. Bolivian Ram (approx 8 cm) - Not as colorful as German Rams, but hardier and I love their "red trim"
Biotodoma cupido aka Cupid Cichlid (approx 13 cm) -
Mesonauta insignis aka Flag Cichlid (20 cm) - search by scientific name, sometimes shares a common name with a dwarf species
Nannacara anomala aka Golden-eyed Dwarf Cichlid (8 cm) - looks a bit like an Apisto, but is more forgiving of harder water
Cleithracara maronii aka Keyhole Cichlid (9 cm) - very peaceful (although mine is a little territorial)
Archocentrus nanoluteus aka Panamanian Yellow Cichlid (10 cm) - not SA, but supposedly very peaceful
Laetacara dorsigera aka Red Flag Cichlid (7 cm) -
Laetacara curviceps aka Dwarf Flag Cichlid (7 cm) - (if you find someone that sells these let me know!)
Archocentrus sajica aka Sajica Cichlid (10 cm) - Herbivorous, forms a territory around a cave, (costa rican)...unsure how compatible with other cichlids

I think that the biggest reason for why cichlid-forums didn't do much for the cookie cutter set ups with SA cichlids is because of the unpredictable nature of CA/SA cichlids vs Africans which are pretty well pegged out as far as temperment already

We have these in the LFS I work in, I think theres still 2 or 3 there currently

Unfortunately I live in the USA, and thus have been looking for an online retailer.

Oops, didnt notice you were in USA

there are very few cichlid retailers imo that are worth anything but the most notable person to get fish from is Jeff Rapps his site can be viewed at www.tangledupincichlids.com all but 2 of my fish are from him and I will continue to do bussiness with him.