What can I keep with a firemouth cichlid?

Question

It is one male firemouth cichlid in a 20 gallon tank. There is good filtration, the temp is about 77 and the ph is about 7.0. The water is moderately hard. Something on the cheaper side please if possible.

Answer 1

They are a south american cichlid. You can keep Convicts with them (which are cheap), Jewels, Green Terrors, anything along that line. Make sure you have plenty of hiding places incase there is any agression among them. They like to stake out their territory. This is very common in cichlids. Make sure you stay within the rule of starting a new tank, 1" of fish per 5 gallons of water. After you have gone through your cycling period, 1" per gallon taking their adult size in consideration.

Answer 2

You don't.  Like the last answer said, in a 20 gallon tank, you do NOT put a Jack Dempsey in there.  For starters, the aggressiveness on that fish alone is a mistake to put in with Firemouths, not to mention how big JD's get.  

Secondly, my friend fish guy, is no expert, I'm sorry to say.  He can pull all the UK guidelines he wants, and in many aspects, the USA is behind or rather we end up following some things that Europe is doing, but I'll go head to head with ANY cichlid keeper from there, name the time and day, that's all I can say.

As a general idea, you do NOT want to mix Africans and South Americans, even if you are using dwarves.  In this case, your tank footprint is too small, and a novice cichlid keeper would know this.  The only other option might be worth you time to think about is just increasing your firemouths only. OR get a bigger tank.  A 20 gallon footprint is a solo species footprint for the most part.  Your temp is a little on the low end too.  I'd try to bump that up to like 80-82.  Ph looks good for firemouths, but what GH and KH readings?  Everything does look ok for firemouths only.

Answer 3

I'm a huge fan of cichlids!

A pair kribensis dwarf cichlids:

A pair of blue ram cichlids:

Malawi cichlids:

Royal ram cichlids:

Convict cichlid:

Answer 4

BRING TEMP UP TO 79 -8O, AND GET A GREEN TERROR, OR JACK DEMPSEY, DEMPSEY ABOUT 3-4 DOLLAR AND THEY ARE BOTH S. AMERICAN.  U NEED BIGGER TANK SOON. KEEP UP ON WATER CHANGES

Answer 5

ur tanks is too small for a jack dempsay or green terror

but for silver dollas it iwll work i know cause i had them myself in a 20 gallon ( Long) with 1 firemouth and 2 gold severum cichlids

but you can get maybe a pair of convict cichlids but watch out casue they wil lbe breeding every month i have 2 breeding pair in my 30 gallon tank and i cant put any new fish there cause they will kill it

thye can be nasty when breding