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Firemouths and Butterflies
>can a pair of firemouth cichlid ( cichlasoma meeki ) be kept in a
>quite-heavily planted tank ? or will they destroy everything onsight ?
>and can i mix them with ...let's say a school of big rummy nose tetra, or
>neon tetras and the likes ?
>also can anyone tell me about Anomalichromis thomasi ?
I haven't kept Firemouths since I was a kid, but as I remember them, they
were BIG diggers, and very territorial. I wouldn't choose them for a
"garden" style planted tank, but I'm sure I could set up a suitable home
for them that was planted with the right plants. I'm not sure whether they
would be safe with neons or rummynoses, as both of these tetras are pretty
small. I'd probably pick something a little bigger and FAST. The first
thing that comes to mind would be diamond tetras.
I can tell you from long term and continuing experience that Anomalochromis
thomasi are exemplary citizens in the planted tank. They like to spawn on
a hard surface, so they don't do much digging. In my tank, they actually
usually choose a large Anubias leaf. I have had as many as 3 pairs in a
heavily planted 4' 70G tank with no more than ocassional skirmishes. I
have often had 2 pairs with spawns at the same time. They are excellent
parents, and fairly tolerant of the youngsters even as they get larger.
The only "problem" I had was that at one point I let about 20 of them grow
to sub-adult size in the tank. At this point, all spawning activity
stopped until I thinned the population back down to the original 6 adults.
I have found them to be beautiful, peaceful and hardy. In their own way,
they are as pretty as Kribs, and less argumentative. (though I have also
had _many_ Kribs without the problems some people have described on this
list, as long as they were kept in tanks at least 4' long)
Karen