Cichlids in marine tanks

I thought I might start this in it's own thread since it's something many
Cichlid keepers might be interested in.

I've acclimated Cichlids like Red Devils, Black Belts, Urupthalmus and
Mangaguans to fully saline tanks and had them living with Trigger fish,
Damsels and Panther Groupers.

I dpersonally I didn't keep them in the marine tank for too long because I
started having overcrowding problems in the salt water tank, but I've seen
other people do it as well and I've also kept Cichlids in high salinity up
to 20 ppt with wild fish from Lake Ponchartrain (which is brackish) for
years. I tried it after doing some research for an article I wrote about
Non Indingenous fish species in Florida for TFH in 1998, and finding out
that some Cichlid
species actually thrive in marine environments and can be found in the open
ocean. "Mayan" cichlids were the first species I learned of, but I believe
it's also well known that some other species such as Black Belts can do so
as well.

Googling just now I found this article about acclimating cichlids to salt
water. It describes an experiment in acclimating fish and mentions species
like the Mayan and Black Belt being found in the open ocean.

http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache....umich.edu/~ro
ldfiel/Salty%2520cichlids.pdf+black+belt+cichlid+ocean&hl =en&gl=us&ct=clnk&c
d=3

I have tried more species than were described in the article above with
success. My personal experience is that it depends a lot where they come
from, some estuarine and lake dwelling cichlids seem to handle it ok (Mayans
and Red Devils), deep riverine fish (like Oscars or some species of Tilapia,
say) much less so. Some cichlid books I used to have before they were
flooded in Hurricane Katrina mention certain species which are found in salt
water
estuaries or even miles off shore.

I also know that since my home town of New Orleans became infested with
Cyanogutatum cichlids, they have been found in some numbers in the
(brackish) waters of Lake Ponchartrain by researchers at the University of
New Orleans.

I wonder if anyone else has tried this and what results they had. The most
interesting thing to me was to see how the Salt Water fish interracted with
the Cichlids I put in there, which were mostly territorial lake dwelling
Central Americans. To my surprise, the Cichlids such as the Managuan,
Black Belt and Citrinellum held their own well, even coping with with
aggressive trigger fish.

DB