Severum stocking

Perhaps two?

Really depends...

Severums are wonderful, and peaceful for the most part, but two males will be territorial and will bicker about space a bit. Your tank sounds big enough that there's enough room to accommodate that.

An official male/female "pair" would be very happy, but would get quite territorial around breeding time, and likely be pretty aggressive towards any other severum(s) in the tank. I have heard of two pairs of severums having territories at opposite ends of a 6 foot tank, though that seems it would need a little luck.

You can probably get away with more than two severums more successfully if they're all females, but that's rolling the dice quite a bit unless you're getting mature fish.

So, two would make the most sense to me... plus, you can have some other larger, less agressive cichlids in there. Probably one each of a given species.

Good luck!
-Ryan

G'day New Boy,

Wow! I think RyanR and HONDO are being very conservative on thier stocking advice. When it comes to offering advice on stocking levels, I'm known as a conservative myself, however I'd be looking at a few more fish in your tank.

For our American cousins who haven't been to the library section to do the conversions, New Boy's tank is a bit more than 600 liters according to the calculations of the dimension he supplied. 200cmx55cmx75cm which is 825 liters, or 78.75inx21.66inx29.5in which is 217 gallons.

One thing to note with SA cichlids. You may be only to fit two pairs of a certain species of cichlids into a certain sized tank due to thier size, behaviour and temperament. However it is still possible to stock a couple of other species of cichlid in the tank, becuase they inhabit slightly different parts of the tank, behave different and don't pose a threat to the other cichlids.

I'd be looking at two pairs of Severums, six Geophagus proximus, and a pair of either Laetacara flavilabris or Laetacara thayeri.

As for dither fish, I'd look at a school of Head-and-taillight tetra and a school of Bleeding-heart tetra.

Along with your bristlenoses, I'd also look at four Flash Plecos, Panaque sp. L204.