lee250

I got a male red empress that is about 3" long. Anybody have any experince with red empress cichlids? I have him alone in a 20 gal tank. Can I add other fish with him, other than other cichlids like big swordtails or that kind of thing?

Slug

In short, no. A 20gal is to small. Personally i think its to small for the empress, so i wouldn't put any more fish in there. Red Empress are a type of Malawi Hap, and the haps tend to grow larger then their mbuna counterparts.

Swordtails and fish of the like don't mix well with any of the African cichlids.

Angela_96

As mentioned above a Red Empress is a Lake Malawi Cichlid. They are from africa. A swordtail is not a cichlid and should not ever be mixed with african cichlids.

The red empress needs a tank at least 55g (4 foot long) and I would only mix it with other lake malawi fish, they are only compatable with lake malawi fish. It is a Hap, and they do get rather large.

Here is the profile for the Red Empress:
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profile...es.php?id=1368

Allie

Malawi haps, as well as all other Malawis need to be with groups of their own to be happy.
From my experience the Red empress get larger than you would expect, 8-10" have been reported...so I would not have them in anything less then 100gs. You will need 3 females for each male and they do get quite feisty when they want to.
If you cannot provide the proper space for him I would return it. Nothing worse than a stunted fish which as so much potential for beauty.
This article has more details
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/p_taeniolatus.php