75 Gallon Stocking Ideas

Mikiel1984

So I recently got lucky and found a 75 Gallon Aquarium with stand on craigslist for $100. This is a really nice upgrade from my smaller 55 Gallon. Now that I am at this size of aquarium I would like to start getting larger fish and moving away from smaller community fish, but being new to the world or cichlids and larger fish I am not sure exactly what I want or how many I should get. I don't care whether they eat smaller swimmers or not the only thing I would care about is making sure they don't bother my cory's or plecos.

Let me know what you have, what fish have the best personalities, what you suggest would be good for a novice at owning larger fish or what you wish you could get if you had a 75 blank canvas to build on.

A couple of things I have been drawn to so far are Jack Dempsy's and Geophagus Sp.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

- Mike

Philnominal

If youd like you can check my sig for ideas on my blank canvas. :P Note mine is probably pretty packed in there. When it comes to cichlids though, they are like people, each and own has its own personality.

While i havent kept a jd, they are classified as an aggressive fish though they tend to be the more peaceful of the aggressive fish. (yes oxymoron i know) So you may want to be cautious. My Severum is only 1 inch and is already a attention hog who loves to beg for food if you looking for something with personality but wanna keep other fish with it. From what i understand anything that gets about 2-3 inches and has a reasonably deep body should be safe from swallowing and if you get them small and grown them up with the fish in the tank they tend to be less agressive to tank mates, though its hit or miss with them especially with other cichlids.

Mikiel1984

Thanks so much for the advice. I do like the Severum but based on everything I read they can get up to 12" which leaves very little room in my tank for it to turn-around. I was thinking that I might try to find something that maxes out at about 8". I think the Jack's are about that but not sure what else.

Thanks,

- Mike

Philnominal

To my understanding males usually max out at around 10 inches and females around 8. Though you could go Rotkiels and they max out at like 8 for males.

Also while i haven't kept one yet to my understanding the 4 species traded under the blue acara name tend to get 6-8 inches and be more on the peaceful side for cichlids.

jsciacca

for several new world cichlids a 75 is still too small...depending on how much attention you want to put into it i would suggest Discus or old world cichlids. if you want to stay with SA/CA cichlids maybe look into the Geophagus sp.

Mikiel1984

Thanks again for the advice. I actually have a couple of the Geophagus SP. already and they are pretty small for the time being. They do seem to have pretty interesting personalities though. I read somewhere they can get upwards of 8". Is this true? If so I might just convert my tank to a full Geo tank.

Thanks again and I would still love to hear more thoughts.

- Mike