I had a pair of these a few years ago. But gave them up when I went the Discus route. They are really nice fish to keep - gentle giants. And I have been searching for them again after I gave up the Discus A lfs not far from me got some in during the week, so I went to have a look They were tiny, about 2cm max. Impossible to sex. I want a pair. So I bought 6, will hopefully get a pair out of that, and will offload the extras. My lung hasn't had a go at my other fish, but didn't want to take a chance with these. And the Severum or Geophagus may hassle them. So a friend of mine has agreed to home them for me until they get a bit bigger. I recon they will be ok in my tank at about 5cm
I knew nothing of these and just looked them up, seems there are q few variations in colour and some contradiction in terms of their behaviour. Do you have a reliable source for further reading.
@Broder, They become a rich reddish brown colour They get to about Oscar size. Males about 30cm. Females a bit smaller. But they are a lot more chilled than Oscars.
I have a few books at home which deal with SA cichlids They are quite variable in colour. From my experience they are quite calm. As far as SA cichlids go. Though I imagine with fish behaviour it is also down to the individual fish. When breeding,they probably can be very agressive when it comes to protecting their young - as most brood carers do.
They are gorgeous @Reedfish Funny enough I saw them at one of the LFS' this Saturday, they had one in their display tank.... Haha I begged for it but they wouldn't sell it.... So..... I bought a baby.... about 9 or 10 cm Took this pic off cichlids.com the one in their display tank looks just like this
Birds and Pets for Africa, they had some that were about.... 7cm, I think they were about R150.00.. didn't take too much note of price as I wanted the bigger ones of which they had 3, about 11cm at R450.00
@MariaS, The lfs where I bought my lung had some adults. But I had spent a fortune on the lung. So I had to pass on the chocolates. Does yours look to be a male or female? A bit difficult to sex at that size?
Sorry @Reedfish... I missed this while I was "out of action!" and was thinking of asking how your are when I saw I had missed this post I am not sure..... I was assured that the bigger one was a male..... I went back and bought a baby as well after falling in love with his character!! He will steal worms from right under my Oscars mouth and wags his tail when he sees us!! Will post picture and you can have look, the little one is still shy but I will try How are yours doing?
@MariaS, No problem Good to hear your are doing well. Mine are still "on holiday" in my friends grow out tank. I will give them another few weeks there. At this age they grow fast.
@Reedfish, this is the bigger one which I was told is a male but as we know what we told by LFS is not always right so.....
@MariaS, Very nice Seems a bit small still to be able to tell if it's a male Needs to start growing the neuchal hump to be sure. Is the small one in with all your big cichlids? If so, is it possible to move it to a smaller grow out tank. It could be more settled if you are able to do so
@Reedfish, thanks... No..... the 2.2m tank that we had the disaster with was rebuiltand came back. I set it up about 6 weeks ago and my cichlids and clownswere moved to the big tank This tank at moment only has the 2 Oscars I rescued, the 2chocolates, 7cm baby flagtail and about 6 tiny zebra loaches. The 2 Oscars have paid no attention the 2 small chocolatesin the few days they been together but, I am setting up a tank for the two Oscars as I want to see if they willspawn. This was to have happened two weeks ago but... plans went a bit wrongand it didn’t happen. I have the tank, filter everything so all going well, Cesarwill help me set it up this weekend Then there will only be the 2 chocolates, the littleflagtail and little loaches in the tank I want the chocolates only in this tank... might then go fetch another baby.... will see...
