Cichlid and Pleco in same tank Question

CichlidChick

I am new to fishkeeping and am rescuing a friends 2 year old 3 inch fish ( im told it looks like a female Red Peacock Cichlid ). I have an empty 25 gallon now and was wondering if what bottom dweller or other small fish I could keep with the cichlid, only 1 more ! Any more and it would be too crowded, and yes I know that a 25 gallon will eventually be too small so I will be upgrading to a 40 gallon long by end of the year.
Any advice,info or tips would be great, thanks.

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chrisparypa

Pleco is fine they can be in one tank but... pleco is from totally different biotope and I wouldn't recommend pleco to aquarium 25 gallon... this is very popular fish but this is huge mistake to keep pleco in tank smaller than 50 gallon... don't take me wrong he will be just fine but we all trying to bring the tank enviroment as close as possible to the natural enviroment where fish is living right ?? Pleco likes pH no higher than 7.5 Chichlid like pH higher than 7.4... pleco will be fine but he would prefer something different... U can... but its up to u... I wouldn't cuz this is not fish for this type of tank...

CichlidChick

I've heard there are african catfish, but its hard to get them ordered in at my LFS. Thanks for the response though . :D

iamntbatman

Yep, rather than a pleco I'd go with an African rift lake syno of some kind, but I wouldn't do this until you have the larger tank to work with.