Kribensis And Apistos

[tmh0921]

I bought a 75g tank two weeks ago to set up a dwarf cichlid tank. I set it up with mature filter media in a canister filter (thanks to a buddy runnung an extra filter on his tropical community tank for me). The water has been testing steady for a week (0 ammonia, 0 Nitrite, 20 Nitrate) with regular ammonia dosing to 4ppm, so I have purchased 6 dwarf cichlids from a breeder to go in the tank - 2 Kribensis, and 4 total Apistos (2 different varieties). They arrived today.

The Kribensis are about 2 - 2.5", and the Apistos range in size from 1" - 1.5". Sooooo....Should I seperate the little guys from the bigger ones until they get bigger, or should I introduce all of them together? My tank is 45.5" x 18" x 20". There are plenty of caves and plants, so there is plenty of room for them to stay out of each other's way. I just don't want to doom the smaller ones to being killed by the larger kribs.... I was HOPING they'd all be similar in size when I got them....

I do have a spare 10g cycled fry tank I could put them in, or I could put them in my 30g tropical community tank for now. But I'd rather introduce them all at once so that the Kribs don't stake out the whole tank as their territory.

Thoughts from those experienced with cichlids?

 

[lowthy76]

I bought a 75g tank two weeks ago to set up a dwarf cichlid tank. I set it up with mature filter media in a canister filter (thanks to a buddy runnung an extra filter on his tropical community tank for me). The water has been testing steady for a week (0 ammonia, 0 Nitrite, 20 Nitrate) with regular ammonia dosing to 4ppm, so I have purchased 6 dwarf cichlids from a breeder to go in the tank - 2 Kribensis, and 4 total Apistos (2 different varieties). They arrived today.

The Kribensis are about 2 - 2.5", and the Apistos range in size from 1" - 1.5". Sooooo....Should I seperate the little guys from the bigger ones until they get bigger, or should I introduce all of them together? My tank is 45.5" x 18" x 20". There are plenty of caves and plants, so there is plenty of room for them to stay out of each other's way. I just don't want to doom the smaller ones to being killed by the larger kribs.... I was HOPING they'd all be similar in size when I got them....

I do have a spare 10g cycled fry tank I could put them in, or I could put them in my 30g tropical community tank for now. But I'd rather introduce them all at once so that the Kribs don't stake out the whole tank as their territory.

Thoughts from those experienced with cichlids?

if you have got a male and a female krib, you will be in for big truoble when they spawn, (because trust me they will spawn!!) they will take over the whole tank, and are very aggressive in doing so, just keep an eye on them but my personal opinion is to move the kribs

 

[GShorty1981]

They won't take over a 75g, but i wouldn't mix them with Apistos.

 

[kyleb2003]

In my experience you shouldn't do it. I have a similar sized tank and had a pair of kribs plus an apisto male, the apisto got harrassed daily so had to separate them. Don't risk it.