Community Tank With Cichlids?

[richywiseman]

I have been keeping fish for 3 months now and,have just moved my livestock from a 70L tank into a 350L tank in the hope of adding more fish.
At present I have 2 Opaline Gouramies, 4 Clown Loaches and 8 Guppies.

I would really like to keep Cichlids( like Malawi), but after doing research it appears to me that to keep Cichlids you really need to keep them
In a species specific tank because of the water parameters.

The question is that when I go into pets at home in my local town they have several display tanks and have a mixture of everything Cichlids,gouramies, silver sharks, loaches, plecs, and they all seem fine?

Is this wise?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

it's not just the water parameters but also the feeding requirements that vary. it can be very hard to get two groups of fish in one tank to eat different foods, admittedly with things like cories you can put it catfish pellets and most of the other fish won't touch them. but trying to put two different types of flake/floating food and getting them to eat the right one is gonna be hard

lake malawi cichlids are also often very agressive, your clown loaches and gourami's may well be fine, but I wouldn't hold out much hope for your guppies. the fish in the display tanks are a bit bigger and more boisterous so could probably hold they're own against them.

because of the aggression issues between malawi cichlids you also need to overstock them to spread the aggression out between them, if you've an overstocked tank you need extra strong filtration, and I've heard that gourami's don't always like a lot of flow that would come from a big filter.

i think there's just so many issues and things to go wrong it's generally considered a really bad idea and best to keep malawi's in a tank of they're own.

i'm sure with just the right community fish and malawi's and correct tank decor, filtration etc etc you could maybe get a set up that would work for a while. however it's not something i would attempt or advise anyone else to do.

 

[richywiseman]

Thanks for that, I have enough aggresion from the male Gourami as it is, He may need to go.

I might get another tank for Malawi Cichlids.

Cheers,