I've been doing some reading on acceptable tankmates for the Aros, and seem to be running into some trouble finding consistent information.

I have a tank, (6'x30"x28") and one currently 12" to 14" silver. (The one that's missing an eye, and has a bit of drop eye in the other)

I've seen in my research one of two things. That either a) there should be *nothing* in with the aro, or b) so long as what ever it is doesn't fit in it's mouth you're good to go.

They both seem to me to be too extreme in either direction. The only other Aro tank setup I've seen in person is in a Japanese restaurant near me, they have a Silver in with some gigantic fancy goldfish (fantails and a few of the other slow sort). I've talked with the guy who keeps the tank, and he said, except for it being a bit warmer than he would prefer for the goldfish, everyone has gotten along quite well for quite some time.

Obviously I wouldn't want anything aggressive with the Aro. He's beat up enough as it is, I wouldn't want to see him get picked on.

Right now, I have a 4 inch Red Tailed Cat, and I was trying to come up with some reason that would make for a bad mid term solution. I know the RTC will eventually outgrow the tank, but I'd think that it would be fine for at bare minimum a year.

So far my experience with RTCs leads me to believe they act like warm water channel cats. Anyone have any experience otherwise?

Ok here is what I ahve kept with my silvers peacufully: silverdollars, uarus, tsns, rtcs,plecos, dats, rinfoil barbs, pacus, water cows, etc..

I've looked at dozens of aro set-ups. You have a special situation there with one eye missing and the other having drop-eye. I'd avoid larger mid-water cichlids, esp if the uaru was already harrassing him and had to be moved. A one-eyed aro would be an easy target. If ya already need to find future quarters for the RTC, obviously ya don't want a TSN. IIRC, Datnoides campbelli and D. quadrifasciatus are primarily brackish, and occasionally dats can get a nasty streak, but that might be an option. I'd avoid pacus and the tinfoils as they're both pretty active for his condition, and that tank isn't large enough for pacus anyways, which you already know. I don't have any first-hand experience with the larger sleeper gobies, so no opinion there; the literature gives conflictig information. Long term, plecos would be good, maybe a Satanoperca sp. or two, and I think a small school of silver dollars would be alright as well. Pleco and Satanoperca give ya bottom dwellers, silver dollars in the middle, and the aro cruisin' the top.

I think the RTC should be fine for a while. Seen plenty of set-ups with both species, though the RTC was going to have to go sooner or later even in those due to size.

Have ya decided to keep the Warrior permanently?

WYite

The Uaru wasn't picking on him at all, he was just kicking it in the middle like he owned the place. My concern with that was that it would continue to worsen the aro's drop eye. They were getting along perfectly otherwise.

The RTC has future quarters, I just didn't know if that would make for a good stop gap to the final giant pond. The RTC is 4" in a 30 right now. Once he got a little bigger, I was going to move him into a 75 from there to the smaller pond, then the final bigger pond, with the pacu. I was thinking instead of the 75, he could hang with the Aro for awhile instead.

My oldest loves the RTC, and since his near 4ft Channel Cat died, I told him we could keep it, unless he wanted another channel cat.

The 5 year old, has always been more into land stuff. Snails. turtles, frogs slugs and what not until the Aro got here. Now feeding him has become his nightly thing before bedtime and is fond of telling people about *his* fish. Between that and the couple of people who were interested in him all balked when they found out he had one eye. Looks like I got another long term resident.

Don't remind me about the TSNs. Once I find a home for this 18" RTCxTSN I'll be a happy camper. Guy who was going to take it bailed otherwise I would have never brought it in.

Not sure if it's the RTC part or TSN part but the grunting totally messed with my head the first night it was here. I didn't know they grunted like that.