Ok, most of you are familliar with my 55.
I plan to add 2 more pictus cats and some Kribs.
How many Kribs should I add?

I was thinking about 6, and hoping for 3 pair to form.

hmm, well you'll probably need a huge grow-out tank for the pictus, and 3 pairs would be good, but you'd need to ... somewhat seperate the tank into a few *sections* using bogwood, decor, plants, etc. for territorial reasons, And if you know you'll have an even 3 pairs of kribs, then have a few fry tanks, because since cichlids protect their young, and all those jazzy breeding habits, the fry will have a good survival rate.... i can imagine the 55 nowseems all nice and good at first, pictus swimming around, kribs and some fry visible, then jiggle around some plants and BOOM, thousands of fry come swimming out.. :blink:
I wish i was in your shoes, i cant afford cichlids

I'd get either one pair of kirbs or one male and 3 females. When I had kribs (two pairs) in my 55...they would always rip eachother up. When I sold one pair...the remaining pair bred like crazy! :laugh:

Well, I have been doing these tanks very low budget and very slowly. I only have a little over $100.00 invested in them, including fish, stand, tanks and lighting. :laugh: I am an accomplished DIY'er and scrounger.LOL you can see some of my projects in the DIY forum and my tank journals in Members Tank Profiles & Journals.

The info I have read about the pictus says it only gets about 6 inches long so I'm not worried about a grow out tank for them.

Shadow, will they breed as a trio? I thought they were supposed to be in pairs. Would it work to have a single male and 3-5 females, meaning would all the females breed and not kill each other?

I haven't tried stocking one male and multiple female. So I'm not sure what would happen...

Well, I found a sem-local LFS, 60 miles away, they have both Kribs and Bolivian Rams jay :woo: $10.00 per fish for those two species, is this a decent price or should I keep looking?

The tanks were all very clean and in good condition, I didn't see any signs of disease or neglect, they even had an Elephant nose that was digging for food in broad daylight.

The woman did say that the Kribs would eat the Platys, does anyone know if this is true? If it is I may go back to my Bolivian Ram theory and skip the Kribs. I dont mind the Cichlids eating the platy fry, that's why I got them in the first place, but I would like the adults to live and keep producing fry-munchies for the Cichlids.