[nemo79]

Birchell is right. Before I got into saltwater I had a community tank which the only recommended cichlid is an angelfish. I then had cichlids. There is no way to mix cichlids with regular tropical fish. Cichlids in the beginning will be fine when they are juvanile but once they build territories and grow a bit you'll be in for trouble. Cichlids grow fast, are aggressive fish, and need to be kept with other compatable cichlids. Lets put it this way one of the most aggressive cichlid is gorgeous, only grows to 2 inches but it can and will terrorize others to death is the demasoni. I had 2 cichlids beat the crap out of another one until it was dead...why because it swam in their area. Please do your homework as it's not fair to the fishies to go through the brutal attack they will go through with a cichlid.

My suggestions is either have a tropical community which you could house one angelfish, 10 raspboras ( these are hardy, fun, and scooling fish) a few dwarf gouramis. etc

Or have real fun with a cichlid tank. Cichlids have amazing character, awesome colour for freshwater. Most would suggest not mixing south american and africans but I did but I also studied my fish prior to purchasing. I kept no highly aggressive fish well except for the demasoni. I had frontosa's, yellow labs, geophagus brasilicus, siclasoma sajica, severums. I wouls stay away from, texas, convicts, demasoni, habs, these are mean fish. Good luck.