Dave Asks By Email...

I'm not sure we have anyone who posts regularly who keeps central American cichlids  I know we did a while ago but not recently.
I have never kept these fish, I'm afraid. But from what I read it can be very hit and miss mixing them. Depending on the nature of the individual fish concerned, they could live together nicely or it could turn into a blood bath.

Not very helpful, I know.....

Most of the cichlids that he is considering, the Severums, Firemouths and Acaras, are considered to be reasonably peaceful. At least as far as these large C. American cichlids do "peaceful". But they do appear to get a bit friskier when breeding,  so I wouldn't be inclined to keep breeding colonies of them.

The exception to this is the Green Terror. It is variously described in the literature as being "violent", "territorial", "aggressive". These terms are very often prefixed with terms like "highly" or "very" or even, occasionally "extremely"! It would probably need to be isolated.

I had a Green Terror (Female). It laid eggs once and everything else was forced to live in 1/2 of the tank.
They are extremely aggressive.
Severums are usually placid.

Sorry, I started replying to an old thread which cropped up in my view for some reason.