Hopefully someone can help/advise,
i have a large cold water tank, that i am thinking of converting to house my 3 chocolate cichlid's that are at the moment in another tropical tank and growing larger,

Firstly once i have removed the remaining cold water fish, would i have to totally strip the tank, ie clean the gravel/ornaments etc? and then do a full cycle ready for them?

After that are 3 chocolate cichlid's ok in a tank alone, ie are they like Oscars, and singles or pairs that get on better? at the moment as i say they are in a another large tropical tank with reasonable sized fish and not seen any aggression towards others, every week i can see them growing so planning ahead,
i also have another tropical tank that contains smaller fish, Mollys,sword tails, clown loach gouramis etc, so putting any of the chocolate cichlid's in that tank is out,
so if anyone can advise on the above?
THANKS

Just get yourself some heaters and you should be okay. How many fish did you keep in it as cold water? If the fish you are putting in it are bigger than are going to create a larger bioload then you're going to have to keep a very close eye on the water conditions because you may get some ammonia building up as the filter may have to catch up with the extra bio Load

Thanks for reply,
sorry i forgot to mention it has always be slightly heated as for last 2-3 years
it has also housed a plec and never had any issues, it has a fx5 filter and everything else just ready to run a tropical, its always had about 6 fancy cold water (still has) my main concern was once i rehome them, do i strip the tank down as if starting again?
as obviously the cold waters throw out more waste than normal tropicals (hence the fx5)

and again will the 3 chocolate cichlid's be ok housed together, do they tend to pair off? as they grow would it be better two alone, seems a daft question as we have 3 together now but they are in with other fish

If I were you, I would rehome the current stock... then immediately check your water... if your readings are correct then heat and add your chocolate cichlids... You will need to watch for pairing signs and aggression...

I am assuming this tank is big enough to house them all....

Yes i suppose a water test would be the sensible option lol

yes tank is a approx 100 gallons, as is the one they are coming from,
but as i said that is with other medium sized fish,
who said this hobby was relaxing and sedate lol

i had my 180Gl running with goldfish, and koi.
When they became too big i rehomed them, couple at a time.
Added the new fish a couple at the time too.
It was a strange combo, with Koi ,plecos and Silver Dollars.
Until the last 2 small koi were caught.
Then i finally got my O.

I don't think you need to strip it and start over. Like Nicki said, just throw some heaters in the tank, warm it up a bit and see how the Chocolates do. Keep an eye on the water parameters, watch for signs of aggression, and I think you should be good.

Thanks for your input
must admit wasn't looking forward to redoing the tank,
but pretty sure in a few months the chocolates would be
getting rather large
thanks again!

Converting cold to tropical is easy.

Step 1 test the water to make sure ammonia and nitrite are zero. If nitrate is above 20 do 25% daily water changes until nitrate is about 20

Step 2 put a heater in and get the temperature to about 79f

Step 3 Take out old fish and put new fish in at the same time, if the total weight of the tropical fish is greater than the weight of the fish taken out then move the tropical tank filter and put that on the cold water tank (leave cold water tank filter running as well), leave this filter on the tank for about 6 weeks

This is assuming that the cold water tank and filtration is enough off course