Should I get my EBA a friend?

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OliveFish05

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Hi! I have a 55 gallon tank with an electric blue acara, 12 bloodfin tetras, a BN Pleco, 3 Cory Hastatus, 6 Pygmy Cory, and I’m hoping to add 3 more Cory hastatus. Would aggression be a concern if I were to get 1 or 2 more EBAs in the hopes of ending up with a bonded pair? This is the tank. I apologize for the quality of the photo.
CA817E19-17A7-479B-BA45-181A94D33332.jpeg



I am concerned that if I ended up with a bonded pair, they could become aggressive to their smaller tank mates. I could potentially trade my small pygmy cories for some larger cories, such as peppered cories. Would that make any difference? Do I even have to be concerned? Would the acara be happier with a friend? I want him to be able to interact and show natural behaviors and not have to be alone
 
Acaras are on the more peaceful side of cichlids (excluding adinoacara species line) and you should be fine with another acara as even if they don't pair up I cant see there being any issues with them at all :)

Three acaras could lead too two pairing up and going for the third so it would probably be best to stick with either 2 or 4 but really nice tank btw! Your corys should be fine but keep an eye out again as if the cichlids pair up then they will target anything close to the nest.
 
Thank you! Would it be a good idea to get 2 more, so that it is more likely for a pair to form and then take the third back to my LFS? Like if I bring home one, and it turns out it is a male (I think the one I have now is a male) but if I brought home two, I have a greater chance of getting a female. I have heard that they like to choose the one the one they bond to, is this correct? If it were correct, more choices would be better, right? Any chance you know what the scientific name of the Electric Blue Acara would be? I am sorry for all the questions, I really did do a ton of research before I bought the acara, but the research I did initially was assuming I only had 1 acara, then I read about how enjoyable it was to have two and am trying to figure out if it would work for my setup
 
Thank you! Would it be a good idea to get 2 more, so that it is more likely for a pair to form and then take the third back to my LFS? Like if I bring home one, and it turns out it is a male (I think the one I have now is a male) but if I brought home two, I have a greater chance of getting a female. I have heard that they like to choose the one the one they bond to, is this correct? If it were correct, more choices would be better, right? Any chance you know what the scientific name of the Electric Blue Acara would be? I am sorry for all the questions, I really did do a ton of research before I bought the acara, but the research I did initially was assuming I only had 1 acara, then I read about how enjoyable it was to have two and am trying to figure out if it would work for my setup
No worries at all! Yeah that should be okay, they might even get on with each other as a trio.. never know what could happen with cichlids. Yeah they like to form a pair (nuclear family) but saying that there will be some males with a harem of females aswell but thats rarer in blue and elec blue acaras and no worries at all its what we are here for and the scientific name is andinoacara pulcher (notice the pulcher at the end, this is very important as andinoacara is usually affiliated with green terrors also known as andinoacara rivulatus which is the gold saum varient)
 
No worries at all! Yeah that should be okay, they might even get on with each other as a trio.. never know what could happen with cichlids. Yeah they like to form a pair (nuclear family) but saying that there will be some males with a harem of females aswell but thats rarer in blue and elec blue acaras and no worries at all its what we are here for and the scientific name is andinoacara pulcher (notice the pulcher at the end, this is very important as andinoacara is usually affiliated with green terrors also known as andinoacara rivulatus which is the gold saum varient)
Ahhh thank you! What do YOU think the best number would be, to get a good chance of a pair? I am concerned that if I had more than 2 when they are full grown that my tank would be overstocked, but my tank could probably support 4 younger ones, to give them time to form a pair or pairs
 
Ahhh thank you! What do YOU think the best number would be, to get a good chance of a pair? I am concerned that if I had more than 2 when they are full grown that my tank would be overstocked, but my tank could probably support 4 younger ones, to give them time to form a pair or pairs
I would go for four and wait to see but the recommended number is 8 as you have pretty much 100% of at least one pair with 8.. EBA are in general a pretty easy fish to manage because they are not too big and nowhere near as aggressive as alot of other cichlids so I think you will be fine either way :) The only possible issue would be breeding time as all cichlids become somewhat instinctively aggressive but again theres always ways of working round cichlid aggression and I'm always happy to help!
 
Ok! Thank you! I will buy 3 more then next time I am at my LFS. I have a 20 gallon tote with a marineland 200 filter, would that work for quarantine? How long do you think I should quarantine them for?
 
Ok! Thank you! I will buy 3 more then next time I am at my LFS. I have a 20 gallon tote with a marineland 200 filter, would that work for quarantine? How long do you think I should quarantine them for?
No worries my friend! That should be perfect! (great tip, if you have the choice try and go for the most active eba's as they tend to settle in alot easier and have a much higher survival rate) I would personally say it depends on how big the fish are.. if they are just about 3-4 cm then you could really quarantine them for a while untill you feel comefortable but if they are larger than 6 cm I wouldnt quarantine them for over two weeks but generally speaking two weeks should be fine :)
 
My LFS sells them at about 2.5 inches, which I believe is a bit under 6 and half cm. The EBA I have now would be from the same supplier, I only got him maybe 3 or 4 weeks ago, and he came home with ich :crazy:
 
Thats really interesting, I enquired about my lfs getting in some electric blue acaras when I wanted a pair and they said that everytime a batch of them came in, they were riddled with ich and so they dont actually bring any more in. They should be fine in the 20gal qt but I would keep them in for two weeks to make sure they are free of ich because that can be a concern with how fast the parasite spreads to other fish! Have you ever heard of "api general cure"? I wouldnt really recommend it often as its more touch and go on its actual effectiveness but according to a few articles it is great at stopping ich dead in its track after a few days but I would say it is better to just try and stick the qt tank temp to 86 degrees just in case as at least this will naturally combat the parasite if the fish happen to have it rather than using a contraversial product :)
 
Ahhh ok. That is really interesting about the ich! I am getting very excited now. My mom said she may be able to take me to our LFS tomorrow. There is a koi in the quarantine tote right now, but we can move it to another quarantine tote of other koi we have set up. Thank you for all your help!
 

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