180 Gallon stock list help -- African AND South American Cichlid Mix tank!

So, I have a brand new 180 tank, cycled ready-to-go tank. I have 2 filters rated for 300 gallon tanks going right now with plenty of flow and hiding spots. I'm using Base Rock from my very old salt water tank as decorations, so they have plenty of open caves to swim through and hide in, it's pretty cool (the rock is completely dried out and disinfected, don't worry!). My big problem (besides possible aggression of course) is the substrate is sand. It's fine for the africans, but I'm not sure how the south american's will handle that. Also, I know I'll get enough fish nazi's after me just becuase I plan on mixing these two fix, but I might as well say my Ph fluctuates from 7.3-7.6 or so. I know fish can adapt just fine, so I don't really think theres a huge issue in the Ph, especially because I'm getting all these fish from the same store with the same Ph going... Anyways, enough background on the tank, now there is stocking help....


So I definitely want majority of the fish to be Africans, I know that for sure, but I just don't know how many I could put in there. For the South American's I KNOW I want to have at least 2 JD's, possibly 2 fire mouth's, and 1 or 2 severums of some kind. I currently have 3 parrot fish (thats all thats in the tank right now) and I'm not getting any more. If it's not too aggressive, I'd like to put in 1 green terror (I hear theres pretty mean fish so thats not crucial to have). And thats about it really, those couple fish and the rest africans... So heres the wishful thinking list easier to read and let me know what you think!

3 red parrot fish
2 Jack Demsey's
2 Fire Mouth
2 Severum
1 Green Terror

10-20????? African Cichlid assortment (jewel, electric yellow/blue, etc.) - help me out with how many I could put in!


So yeah, I'm sure I'm going to get plenty of critism and people saying this is a terrible idea, but this is my plan and I want to make it work. So, I'd appreciate as much positive advice as I can get. Thanks so much!

 

in my opinion youve got a lot of aggressive fish in there. Whats going to happen is the firemouths will pair, the severums will pair, and hte jack dempseys will pair and probably start breeding. Your going to have a lot of chaos going on in my opinion. Awesome fish, just not the best all together I think.

 

out of curiosity, if I got 3 of each, would 2 still pair?? kind of a stupid question, I know... But I was told that odd numbers are good if you don't want pairing to happen... Just more wishful thinking I guess, lol.

I see what your sayin tho, didn't really think of that, I guess the safest thing would be to just do one of each.

Thanks for your insight.

 

I mean pairs are always awesome to have its just some of those fish are central/south american. And africans are totally different IMO. I had a duration in freshwater for a while and kept a firemouth, awesome fish and I would totally recommend them. My only thing is that your mixing tons of africans, with a bunch of pairs of central americans (i believe, dont quote me on this).

It sounds like your pretty set on mixing africans and south/central americans so I would try to conivince you no to haha. But I would just really focus on doing what you can to limit the aggression in the tank, because chances are if you get yellow labs and some other africans they will likely breed also. If you had just africans the tank would probably be much more peaceful however I understand you would probably want some large show fish to stand out from the crowd.

 

Given the stocklist you posted, just the CA/SA cichlids will fill out the bioload on a 180 (not including the africans).


Personally I would pick a large centerpiece cichlid, a group of smaller sized cichlids, a bottom feeder such as a syno cat, and a good school of dithers such as silver dollars. That way you end up avoiding too much aggression and get a nice variety of fish.

Out of the stock you picked, the parrot fish are by far the most aggressive, although GTs can occasionally be pretty nasty when they get bigger than 6" or so.

Also, as Antho312 said, I would highly recommend not mixing Africans and CA/SA cichlids, as they require totally different water parameters.

 

Parrot fish are not aggressive at all. Just to precaution you, Jewels are extremely aggressive fish though. I had one but I took him back to the store becuase fish disappeared overnight.