Firemouth Cichlid Tankmates

[Pioneer]

I'm going to get some of these and I was wondering who makes good tankmates with them besides Catfish.

Any other info is appreciated.

Thanks.

I was hoping I could have some dither fish like Tiger Barbs with them.

 

[Ryan_R]

Really depends on how big your tank is.... and what you might have your heart set on. You probably want to have at least a 55 gallon before considering another larger cichlid. A firemouth should play nice with most of these guys.

While not geographically correct, I *think* tiger barbs might do OK if there are enough of them in there. Tiger barbs can be kind of nippy towards other fish (and mean to each other) unless you have about 6 or more. I'm considering putting our tiger barbs (as dithers) in with a severum in our "hypothetical new tank"... need to research that a little. We have 10 of them in our 29 gallon tank. I do wonder if they have good "dither" qualities, though. Ours are a little skittish and like to play hide and seek. Very active and fun to watch, though.

Our red-eyed tetras are great dithers. They just hang out in the top level of the water column, not a care in the world. I sorta fear they may be cichlid food when our severums get a little bigger.

-Ryan

 

[Colin_T]

if you want a fish that looks similar to tiger barb but is peaceful then go for ruby barbs. They grow to a similar size and have similar markings but aren't a fin nipper like tiger barbs.
In a reasonable sized tank you can add festivums, severums, geophagus sp, rainbowfish, most bigger barbs and tetras and most catfish.

 

[juanveldez]

in my FM tank I started out with 6 FMs( working on getting a breeding pair) in a 55 Gal tank, then I added lots of rocks for caves, some driftwood, and tall plants. currently besides the FMs in the tank there are also 3 odessa barbs plan on getting a few more of them a couple rainbow fish, and a pleco of some sort either a L200 or a L018. also at one time I did have a festivum but it didn't like it in there too much and was showing signs of stress so it got moved to a 30 gal platy tank in which it seems to be thriving.