75 Gallon Colourful/large Fish Stocking

[laurac94]

Im going to look at a 75 gallon tank tomorrow, and if it is in good condition I will be buying it.
Im just wondering what to stock it with now, I really like the dog-like personality of Oscars, which I know are American, but I also like the bright colours of the African cichlids. Are there any large-ish colourful cichlids anyone can recommend for a 75 gallon, I would like a few different ones with big personalities if there are any.
Any recommendations/ experiences?

 

[Wills]

I'm posting here on behalf of the Americans I have no experience of Africans so cant really comment on them.
 
A 75g is a great size for Americans and you have loads of options, you could look at a wet pet situation like an Oscar or a Green Terror or even something a bit rarer like some kind of Vieja like V.Regani for example. Or you could look at mid sized South Americans and go for a mix of something like Rotkiel Severums, Blue Acaras, Festivums. Or in a 75g you could get away with a group of Geophagus sp.Tapajo Red Heads or Geophagus sp.Pindare. Or you could go for some of their smaller relatives like Cupid Cichlids (Biotodomo) or Bandit Cichlids (Guianacara)?
 
For me the best thing about Americans is that you get fantastic character from all of them and you can keep other types of fish reasonably easy with them. So in the mixes I suggested above you can add in some kind of schooling fish, headstanders, catfish or plecs.
 
Wills

 

[laurac94]

Thanks Wills!
I have seen a blue acara in a 150 gal tank with some Oscars and I thought it was gorgeous, my sailfin pleco will definitely be going in the tank, but I also have a pictus catfish I wish to make a school up of at some point, so with these what else would I be able to put in..
So with around 4 pictus catfish, my sailfin pleco and a blue acara
Something red in colour just to mix it up?
An Oscar? Or will there be territory issues? Plus stocking issues?

 

[Wills]

I think an Oscar with the other fish wouldnt be a great idea - a member on here had Pictus with an Oscar and one of them ended up in the Oscars mouth.... it was quite an ordeal but both fish survived - Star 4 was the member in that case you might find her thread but shes not so frequent here anymore. A 75 is the bare minimum for an Oscar as well so adding more fish with them in here might not be a great idea.
 
I like the way the tanks going so far Blue Acaras are really nice, Im a big fan of all Acaras right now and trying to source at least 2 species for my tank, Krobia sp.Red Cheek and Laetacara Thayeri but they are by the by...
 
For a bit of red in the tank I think the best option would be a Rotkiel Severum - though the obvious choice is a Red Spot Severum.... or a Gold Severum but the reason I would go for the Rotkiel is they are more natural looking where as the Red Spots are more artificial looking - they are just line bred fish but do you see what I mean? I always think that a Red Spot would look great in a tank with an Electric Blue Jack Dempsey but again Im drifting... - I also think that a 75 again is a bare minimum for the Super Reds and Golds as they do get larger than the Rotkiels.
 
The other option is to mix South and Central Americans which personally I dont like to do but this mix is quite safe IMO - Firemouths Plenty of red and not too aggressive and they make a great mix with the Blue Acaras - the other Central that you could think of is the Rainbow Cichlid.
 
As for tank mates I like to keep American tanks American, so that would be things like Spotted and Marbled Headstanders, Disk Tetras like Flame Tetras or Diamond Tetras, Lemon Tetras etc - maybe a stock list like this?
 
1 Blue Acara
1 Rotkiel Severum
2 Rainbow Cichlids (they do better in pairs than singles and are pretty calm and placid when they breed)
5 Spotted Headstanders or 5 Marbled Headstanders
10 Flame Tetras
4 Pictus Catfish
1 Sailfin Plec
 
With a good external filter like an FX5 and regular maintenance and I think this tank is very maintainable - if you wanted to lighten the stock somewhat maybe leave the Headstanders out? 
 
Wills

 

[laurac94]

Thanks again for the suggestions, but I dont really want a shoal of anything small, I would rather stick to a few larger fish. As for the severum you suggested I think they are beautiful, but I have never seen them for sale before, I will keep my eye out online for one though.
I do like jack Dempsey too but I thought they were always really aggressive?

As for filtration too there is inbuilt filtration in the hood and I plan on buying another 2000 lph all pond solutions external, I've got one hooked up to my piranha tank and it is great! And silent too, great because it is in my bedroom ;-)

 

[Wills]

I wouldnt trust the filter in the hood I just dont think they are big enough to properly filter a tank of this size. From what I have heard the APS filters are pretty good and at 2000lph you cant really go wrong for a tank this size
 
Which Severum did you like and where abouts are you from? You will be surprised as to how many good shops there are, in sometimes, the most unlikely places.
 
JDs are not that bad, they were one of the first cichlids imported into the hobby so the idea of any aggression was why they were named after a boxer, by comparative terms now they are quite manageable. But like I say I would generally split South Americans and Central Americans, some people say its a bit extreme to split them but I was warned by people in the hobby I really look upto now and suffered the consequenses and lost fish as a result some people get away with it but with fish that can be as volatile as Cichlids I like to play it quite safe now.
 
With the smaller fish - Americans do much better when you have them in the tank, in a river system the bigger fish will use the smaller fish to judge if there are any predators about and having a school of smaller fish in there can really help their confidence - in this situation they are called dither fish. The other plus point to schooling fish in an American tank is for them to act as target fish so if a fight breaks out there is a reasonable chance that the shiney schooling fish will distract them from each others - the best example is putting Silver Dollars in a tank of aggressive Central Americans like Jags. But it works all the way down to dwarfs so it really is worth considering a medium sized school of something.
 
Wills

 

[laurac94]

I live in Huddersfield West Yorkshire, my local pet shop sells the usual fish such as tetras and some cichlids like convicts, I have asked them if they could import more usual fish in the past and they have said no.
I have been looking at aquaticstoyourdoor.co.uk and seen some fish but not the ones we have discussed.
The severum I like is the Rotkiel Severum you suggested, the website has gold red spotted severum, which I am just guessing is a colour variety. They don't really have a large variety of American cichlids though so I might look elsewhere at a specialist.

As for dither fish what about cardinal tetras (they will add colour to keep my mum happy because this tank is going in the living room)
Or as you said something shiny and tight schooling?

I have bought the tank now and it will be coming next Wednesday to be set up on Thursday, I have plenty of cycled media from a tank breakdown so I will be starting to stock in the next few weeks.

 

[Wills]

Ah right a fellow Yorkshire person Allbeit the other side lol!
 
The Rotkiel is a great idea for this tank I think, have you ever been to Tingley Tropicals? They have a good reputation and are the sort of shop to get Rotkiels in.
 
OR you could look at Pier Aquatics or Rare Aquatics especially if you are already considering postage as they both do this but they are only the other side of Manchester and are both incredible shops I have been to both a few times from Hull and its always worth the trip!! Just go well researched as they do stock monsters and it would be terrible if you walked out with something wrong for the tank...
 
I think that Cardinal Tetras are maybe a little small for the kind of fish we are talking about but you could look at something like Columbian Tetras which get to about the size of a digestive and are bright neon blue with red fins or Bleeding Hearts would be a good option, the Flame Back Bleeding Hearts would be a good option as well as none of the cichlids here are that rough.
 
Probably looking a stocking like
 
1 Blue Acara
1 Rotkiel Severum
2 Rainbow Cichlids (they do better in pairs than singles and are pretty calm and placid when they breed)
8 Columbian Tetras
5 Pictus Catfish
1 Sailfin Plec
 
Sounds like an awesome tank to me tons of colour, tons of character and tons of activity - what more could you want
 
Wills

 

[laurac94]

Great! I think I might go with exactly that if I can get hold of that severum, I will look into the shops you suggested too.
Thank you very much, I will post again with pictures once it's all set up probably in a month or so ;-)

 

[Wills]

No problem Just make sure you research all the fish endlessly - including any that you see that you might want to swap around... nothing worse than getting something unsuitable and having to deal with the problems that follow...
 
Wills

 

[laurac94]

Would I be able to put my Bolivian rams in there? One condition of getting this new tank is that I've gotta get rid of one of the others:'( I've researched and seen that it's not a great idea, but I can't see one of my favourite fish go to my dad's house so I thought I'd check first before I say bye ;-)

 

[Wills]

I dont see why not really Bolivians are a great dwarf that can sit with these larger cichlids an old member on here had a great tank where he mixed large Angels and Rotkiels with them and it looked fantastic! Dont underestimate how big they get at 3 or so years old - would maybe go for a smaller tetra instead of the columbians in that case though just because of bio load - like I said earlier any of the disk shape tetras will work - like Pristella Tetras - the Albino strain of these is pretty nice and quite easy to find these days. Rosy Tetras are gorgeous as well and well worth tracking down
 
Wills

 

[laurac94]

Oh great! Well that's 2 less of my fish going to my dad's house lol ;-) I know he will look after them, but he's not me ;-);-)

 

[laurac94]

Silly question, but what is the best thing to feed them? I've seen a few things online but it's always best to ask someone who actually keeps them ;-) im a student too so kinda need to keep costs down, but I still want quality food ;-)

 

[Wills]

I feed mine a mix of Tetra Prima and the small flakes that Tetra do I forget the name as well as frozen Bloodworms I did try to feed them peas and other vegies but my fish dont do healthy eating apparently.... oh I also occasionally feed chopped prawns
 
Wills