Can i put tiger barbs with cichlids

The dilemma is I have a shoal of 6 tiger barbs, ranging from 1. I bougth these fish before really knowing their requirements, and they do need to be moved into the new tank currently housed in a 20 gal. Can I keep my tiger barbs in with african cichlids? If I can, can anyone suggest some fish for me that will stay no larger than 5" Also, does anyone have any good resources for me to start out looking at? I have read through the pinned topic "The Mbuna Aquarium", but I feel I have alot to learn before diving in.

Thanks EDIT: The dimensions of the tank are 36 inches long 17 inches high and 15 inches wide, and if you want to see a picture of it, click here. FrankSlapperinni Fish Herder. Tiger barbs are usually used as dithers for aggressive African cichlids. This means that since they are such agile nippy fish, they give the cichlids something to focus on attacking besides each other, and usually the barbs can take it.

A good website I found for research is : Cichlid-forum , they have a lot of beginner articles in their library and also very long profiles on many of the more popular African cichlids.

If you want fish that don't exceed five inch's, your best bet is to go with Mbuna or Haps. Both are from lake Malawi, I may recommend Haps more than Mbuna because tiger barbs are omnivores, and I believe all Mbuna except for the Labidochromus and Labidotropheus family should be kept fairly strictly on herbivore diets. But if you were to choose Mbuna, as I mentioned the ever popular Labidochromus Caeruleus would be a good companion, along with some more peaceful Mbuna like Acei cichlids or Rusty Cichlids, which all top out at about I don't know too much about haps, but on the website I mentioned it's easy just to look through all of the profiles and if you see one that catches your eye, read the statistics on length and temperament, or even the article that is included with it.

How ironic is this I think I am going to go ahead and try keeping the tiger barbs in there. I also posted a similar question on there, hoping for more specific experience. Yesterday, I did a search on fish who were herbavores, and looked for fish that got no bigger than 4". They are also all listed as mildly agressive or peaceful.

Here is my current list, now I just get to find all of them hope they aren't too expensive Melanochromis and Metriaclima are the most aggressive Mbuna families; they might just be a little too much for your barbs. Take into consideration some of the cichlids I mentioned above, although they may be a little over 4 inch's when adults, I've been keeping them for a while now and have found them to be very suitable fish that would get along good with barbs.

Plus they are all completely different colors something important when picking cichlids, you don't want them to be too similar , and the Blue, Brown, and Yellow contrast between the three is very striking. Alright, i will definately look into them. The peacocks , venustus ,and orange cichlid seemed to be least interested but my auratus,firemouth,other tiger barbs themselves and my blotch were happily chewing off it's flesh. So far all has been great. Similar Aquarium Threads.

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As long as the Barbs are not too small and the Cichlids are not to big then I would think you might be okay, since you have had sucess in the past! What kind of cichlids do you have? Like I said, since you already have some Barbs in there, I think you would be okay. Just make sure you don't get them too small barbs they might get picked on.