Anomalochromis Thomasi

[TallTree01]

Hi guys,
I've been looking into a small peaceful cichlid to eventually go into my ' oddballs ' tank. I've not been able to find vast amounts of information on any of the usual sites.
In a 3 foot tank how many of these could I comfortably keep?
At what level do they inhabit ( bottom middle top etc ) ?
Would these be considered food for an adult African butterfly fish?
Would they fin nip or harass a rather sedate butterfly fish?

 

[hobby5]

First, I got no experience with butterfly fish. I am currently keeping two A. thomasi in a densely planted and well structured 80x35x40 cm (length x depth x hight) tank. Unfortunately one is harrasing the other throughout the whole tank as soon as it gets in sight . In the beginning I thought I had a pair but now I am unsure. In the smaller sellers tank there were about 5-6 of them getting on ok. So I would say if you cannot get a functioning pair start with about 6-8 juveniles. As long as they are not breeding they should ignore the butterfly fish. In my tank they ignore the lambchop rasbora and the Epiplatys dageti.
 
They are bottom oriented but with this small tank size they use all the tank.

 

[TallTree01]

Thank you. Your input is much appreciated. Could it be as with many cichlids that it is best to have a larger group than just 2 or 3 to spread out aggression?

 

[Bubbelzzz]

At first I have to note that I do not own any of these fish.
 
However, i could find some information. It is advised to keep them in pairs. Which might be hard since it is hard to recognize if your fish is a male or female. The only difference that I could find was that males are a bit larger than females. What you could do in order to get a couple is buy about 4 to 5 of these fish. They will form pairs by themselves. Once they did do this separate the couples.
 
According to the internet do they swim in the middle and bottom layers.
 
I don't think that they will eat each other. Both are pretty strong fish and they inhabit in totally different water levels. In addition, they are both about the same size when they become adult. At least this is what I would guess since I have never owned one of these species.