CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

Hi Everyone!

I am in the process of cycling a 55 gallon tank and was hoping to get some information on Severums. Most of the websites I've been to put more emphasis on African Cichlids.
I would love to hear from someone who has experience with Severums. I would like to know what other cichlids are compatible with them. How about Convicts? Would they do OK together? What others? What about suckermouths? And anything else you can pass along! I'll take any info I can get.
Thanks in advance!!

Sevs are pretty peaceful towards other fish, but it's not a great idea to get really aggressive fish for tankmates for them.

I have my greens and golds with clown loaches and plecos but I have aggressive firemouths and a green terror and an earth eater in there too. They all leave the sevs alone pretty much, if anything one male green sev is chasing a particular female all over the tank every day as he's all coloured up and ready to go!

Nice fishes sevs are for sure. In the end of the day they will stay and my agressive fish will go.

Sevs are a community type fish, where as Cichlids are an aggressive species. Plecos (suckers) are pretty much capatible with all fish from my experience. I have heard of people keeping their sevs with Oscars and doing ok with that situation. Just remember as I can not express this enough on this BBS, there is NO guarentee on fish compatibilty...

-S42K

unlike other cichlids, they are peaceful. so, convicts, JDs, terrors are not good tankmates. they can get rally big too, like 10". plecos are good tankamtes and can defend themselfs. a 55 gal wouldnt be able to fit that many, so maybe 1 servum and a pleco will do. they can be mean tho if they're breeding. remeber, these are peacful fishies.

I have a pair of severums in my 100g with giant danios, clown loaches, and a giraffe cat. They're very peaceful with my other tankmates, and usually very peaceful towards each other, but sometimes the male gets possessive of food and smacks the female around a bit. I understand that they can get a bit aggressive during spawning, but I haven't been lucky enough for that yet.
My two were sort of dull in the store, but they've colored up and turned into beautiful, gregarious, outgoing fish who eat food from my fingers and follow me around from inside the tank. They were my first cichlids and I love them! They're great fish!

I have a 8" gold severum with smaller community fish in a 55 and everyone is happy. He has a spot picked out next to the driftwood and will generally stay there or close by. Feeding time is another story, he gets very greedy and is very messy! We tried to add another severum to the tank, but he really picked at it alot, so we took it back out. Won't get along with convicts, they breed like rabbits and will beat him up bad, regardless of size.

If you want to breed severums check this dudes webpage.
http://web.one.net.au/~scottward/fish/fish.html

I have two 2" gold severums in my african cichlids tank.(55 gallon) So far so good, I guess everyone is still small.

2 gold severums
3 burundi frontosa (2" long)
3 aulonocara baenshi (yellow peacocks, 1 male & 2 female)
4 clown loaches (two 5", one 3" and one 1" long)

Gold Severums are very peaceful fish, but seem to get an additude toward the other severum. Just like most species I guess.

Anyone know how to tell a male from a female?

EC

I've been told that it's difficult to sex severum with 100% accuracy without looking at genitalia, but in general, males have more pointed dorsal and anal fins, tend to be larger, and have squiggly lines on their faces while females tend to have specks or dots instead.

Hey there, I just got the new august "aquarium fish magazine" in the mail and there is a nice article talking about severums You should go pick it up and give it a read, it may answer alot of questions for you.

Adam

Yeah, that article will help you out.

Jay