Cichlids vs Community

[Emergency90]

Hi All,

I'm hoping to get some opinions on setting up my new tank. After many years of grad school, I'm finally settling down and am very excited to be able to get back into fish keeping. I previously had a 29g community tank with a breeding pair of Kribs as the focus, along with cardinal tetras, cories, some inverts, and a few other random residents. I really loved my planted tank and the diversity of fish that I could keep in it. However, I've always been intrigued by cichlids. I wonder what others' experiences have been with switching between these two habitats.

Now that I am getting ready to set up another 29g, I'm torn between another community and a cichlid tank. I like the thought of a new challenge, but I worry that not having many different species of fish and no plants will become stale for me quickly. On top of that, if I was to do cichlids, the questions is African vs American!

Thanks in advance for any thoughts and opinions.

 

[Zante]

I'm a great fan of American cichlids, both south and central, (more south though). With that tank size I'd go for a community tank with a small group of Bolivian rams, or a pair of keyholes.

 

[Mark Z.]

I have been getting into ciclids, also. I have a 55-gallon tank with a heckelii and two geophagus tapajos that are really cool. And they get along fine with most fish larger than a smaller tetra. I have anubias in that tank, tied to mopani wood. And I just tried adding jungle val. We'll see how that goes. The geos like to dig!

In my 48 gallon community tank, I have a keyhole and two gold rams and a curviceps. All very peaceful with the other fish, which include neons and guppies. The keyhole is my favorite. The smaller South American ciclids can be kept in a planted tank no problem. I had a kribensis, but it was sneaking up on other fish and nipping their fins, so I took it back to the pet store.

I have some photos of my tanks in the photo thread.

 

[Demeter32]

I wouldn't be putting African cichlids in a tank that size unless they were just a breeding group of a species that stays under 4 inches (not many do).
A good option to the larger Africans is the shell dwelling species. You could have a nice big colony of probably 2 species and some dither fish that stay at the top of the tank as the shellies always stay close to the bottom.

 

[Emergency90]

I've read differing opinions on whether a 29g is big enough for Africans. Some people seem to think its just fine, while others say a 55g is the absolute minimum. I'd rather not go up to a 55 just for saving space, and technically my new lease says I cannot keep fish, but I think saying its "about a 20 gallon tank" will go over a lot better than 50+!

 

[Zante]

A pair of keyholes (very well behaved for cichlids), small herd of panda corys, small shoal on neon tetras and you're set.

I do prefer to have fewer species, and larger numbers of each species. Fish behave more naturally and it's more interesting to watch them.