[T-McD]

Hello, this is my first post on this forum and I was curious about keeping African Leaf fish in groups. My current stock is 1 african leaf fish, 6 mollies, 1 butterfly pleco, 1 rubberlip pleco, 1 banjo catfish, 1 featherfin catfish, 1 mystery snail, and a lone african dwarf frog. My tank is 55 gallons and moderately planted with penguin emporer 350 hob filter. I do weekly 20-30% changes and the nitrates are always less than 20 ppm.
My question is whether it is okay or possible to add more leaf fish into my tank. My current african leaf fish is a little over 3 inches long and I have had him for a little less than a year. I used to have angel fish at one point and blood parrot at another point but had to get rid of them because they were too aggressive for my other tank mates at the time. The leaf fish would spend lots of time being best buds with them. Hes quite the social little guy and lately after removing his buddy he's started spending alot of time by himself and his appetite isnt as big as it was. I was wondering if I were to introduce some more leaf fish from the petstore if they would possibly get along? Or if not another suggestion for a possible tank mate for him to keep from being bored. Thanks

 

[Betta132]

I assume you mean the spotted type, leopard ctenopomas?
He is going to eat your frog, probably your mollies, and possibly your plecos when he grows up. It might be awhile, but he will.
If you can get other leaffish of the same size, you might have some luck. They can be a bit territorial, though, so you'll definitely want to rearrange the decorations and probably add some more hiding spots.

 

[T-McD]

Well he is certainly big enough to eat the frog now and he hasn't yet so we'll see. I've never feed him live food other than ghost shrimp so I dont think he has the killer instinct really. Im just going to divide my tank and introduce the new Leopard ctenopoma into the tank on the other half. I plan on seeing if theres any aggression between the older guy and the newer ones and evaluate it from there. Any suggestions on whether to get one or two more and how long to keep them seperated for?