My 55 gallon Aquarium with my Bright colored cichlids.
What happens when you mix fish?
There are 4 different types of cichlids in my tank. I have convicts and red jewel fish and a couple of more, I don’t even know what there names but there beautiful.
I’ve had fish tanks for years; my first fish I ever bought was an Oscar. People say that fish are stupid but I would have to disagree.
My Oscars was very smart and I was able to train them to jump out of the tank and catch food from my fingers. I would take the hood off my tank and dangle some food above the water line; they would jump out off the water and bite it. The more I did it, the more confident they would get and then they would jump higher. I had my Oscars jumping 12 inches out of the tank, catch food and fall back in. My friends thought I was crazy and said that it looked like sea world in my house.
I introduced a red jewel fish (cichlid) to the tank and everything went well for a short period of time. The Oscars were the dominate fish. The weren’t mean but they just couldn’t be messed with, the jewel fish didn’t show that much color and was pretty timid until I put a big bell for it to go into. Then all hell broke loose. The jewel fish got real aggressive. The Jewel fishes color turned BRIGHT RED. The jewel fished used the hiding spot (bell) as a fort. The Oscar couldn’t get into the bell because it was too big. My Oscars were 3x the size of the jewel fish.
The Jewel fish would wait until the Oscar passed by the bell and pop out and try to bite the gills of the Oscar. The Jewel fish was trying to kill the Oscar. When the Oscar got bit it went crazy and tried to eat the jewel fish but the jewel fish swam right into the bell and out of danger. This went on for weeks.
Out of the two Oscars I had one of them was a lot smaller. The big Oscar protected the little one. Anytime the Jewel fish went after the little Oscar the big Oscar swam in between them to protect the little one. It was amazing to watch them; it was like watching the discovery channel.
But, to make long story short the jewel fish prevailed.
Recently I started a new 55 gallon tank. I bought all baby cichlids, about 20 in total. There all about a inch long.
One of my jewel fish got stressed out and was swimming all erratic. All the different kinds of cichlids went into attack mode. They surrounded the hurt cichlid and they all starting killing it, It looked like a bunch a piranhas were eating. I felt bad for the fish but that’s how it goes.
ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVES!
When I bought them I learned a bunch of cool things. The woman in the pet store was very informative. She explained to me that it would be a good idea to put sea salt and Epson salt into the tank.
For every 5 gallons of water, use:
1 table spoon of Epson salt
1 tea spoon of sea salt
1 tea spoon of baking soda – baking soda is used for lowering the ph.
My Cichlids like the ph around 7.2 - 7.8
My fish has so much color now. I have red, blue, and yellow colored cichlids in a fresh water tank. It almost looks like salt water tank.
I suggest if you’re interested in setting up a fish tank that you buy cichlids, you won’t regret it.
