What to add to cichlid tank?

well another cichlid is not an option clearly...

so here is what I would get

either a kissing gourami or snake skin gourami, (snakeskins do better)

then either a bichir, or a species of catfish that grows between 8 and 12 in. 2 options would be a sun catfish or a GOLD FLAKE upside down catfish. dont get another pleco. and make sure if you get a gold flake USD catfish, it is a goldflake, not a common.

last tip, make sure the fish you get are currently as large or larger than your JDs since a JD may kill smaller fish. PS I LOVE JACK DEMPSEYS! and try local petstores, as they ussually have larger fish than big companies.

Dempsey's are hard to put other fish with...from personal experience i never was able to house them with other fish that's one of the reasons i don't keep them anymore....if you wanted to try i would say maybe there are 2-3 fish that are just as "tough" as the Dempsey's. one being the Red Devil two being the Jaguar cichlid and three would be the Texas cichlid...the only problem with having these fish mixed together is that there all predatory fish and will constantly fight even the two Dempsey's if their both males they will fight when they hit maturity as well and it will be a disaster for you...they also have a problem with digging up plants and moving the gravel around and what their actually doing is marking the territory already so don't be surprised if they start to fight sooner than later...i hope this was a help to you and good luck!

properly, first you need to understand that your Aulonocara cichlid is an African cichlid and there are numerous species that fall below this call. between the main oftentimes available is the Peacock cichlid. i'm going to base my propose upon that. they are recent in lake Malawi and enhance to approximately 5 inches. The water ought to have a pH from 8.0-8.2, a water hardness 10-18 dH, and a hotter temperature of seventy 9-80 4°F. that's superb to domicile those men in a tank of a minimum of 40 gallons. provided that there's no longer plenty room for tank friends different than in that African cichlids are often stored in what's pronounced as controlled crowding. meaning that a lot of persons are stored in a small area. this assists in keeping aggression from being centred on a particular fish and likewise keeps them from setting up territories. because of the fact yours continues to be small as you're saying, i may well be gentle with including some greater, comparable sized and small as available, different African cichlids. avert including any that are of the comparable species and cichlids of the haplochromis species artwork properly. yet once you are trying this, you somewhat can purely gain this with the purpose of having a larger tank, 40 or greater gallons, withing some months as they start transforming into. additionally keep in mind in case you go with on tank friends different than African cichlids, they'll ought to require the comparable water circumstances and be waiting to stand up to the aggression from the single you have already got. because of the fact of this different Africans are the greater effectual determination for tank friends.

i hope this helps: http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t...

Also try this: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201103...

Hope i helped