Geophagus sveni tank upgrade

I’ve had my geophagus sveni group for over a year now. They have outgrown their 4x2x2ft tank so Im setting up a 5x2x2ft tank for them. The aquarium now has a group of geophagus sveni, a school of lemon tetras, some corydoras and a long nose whiptail catfish.

[@Native_ichthyology]

What's filtration system

[@Varanibae]

Eheim professional 3

[@Dfalo18]

Clean set up 👌👌 , how’s the reptiles going.. 😌

[@Varanibae]

Thanks! All is going well

[@rfo23]

How many Sveni in that tank. And how many are males to females. I’m looking at getting a group for my 150 gallon

[@Varanibae]

Group of 6 close to fully grown sveni in that tank. I believe 4males 2 females, had them since they were small so didn’t run into any issues with not getting ratios right

[@TheN00Pe]

What temp do you keep yours at? Tank is looking good, are no plants similar to their natural environment?

[@Varanibae]

I keep them at about 27c. No plants is a personal choice. I used to keep a lot of planted tanks and wanted a change. A lot of American cichlids would also rip out plants and being sand sifters I can’t really plant anything into the sand

[@TheN00Pe]

@@Varanibae damn, that's quite a high temp 😊

[@nosense5]

Beautiful tank

[@tonywong9105]

nice setup, nice music too!

[@Varanibae]

Thanks Tony!

[@1RSwim]

hey a quick question do you think these would get along with bichirs ?

[@Varanibae]

Can’t comment on the bicheirs behalf as I’ve never kept one, but the sveni shouldn’t start any problems, they left my lemon tetras, corydoras and whiptail catfish alone.

[@1RSwim]

@@Varanibae ah fair enough I really want these I think they’re the nicest cichlids but I keep bichirs which are predatory , they tend to bite or nibble fish that fall asleep on the bottom or bump into them which is a bit of a concern but I’ve seen bichirs live quite fine with Oscar’s which is why I asked :) really lovely fish though !

[@Varanibae]

@@1RSwim based on what you said, might run into issues keeping both together. Compared to Oscar’s, geophagus spends a lot more time in the bottom of the tank foraging and sleeping, sveni also have long flowy fins with trailers that might get nipped.

[@stephensetukavala8329]

I wouldn’t recommend having bichirs with geos. Had a dominant red head once that annoyed my Bichirs so much it ended up getting beaten to death in the night. Once the geos start breeding they can be territorial towards any fish that gets in their way even if it means death. Had this happen to me a few times and I stopped trying out this combination.