Does anyone still have cichlasoma sp. "esmeraldas gold"?

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Hybridfish7

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Dec 4, 2017
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I still have my female, she is nearing the end of her lifespan. She is around 6 inches long, and should be around 6-7 years old by now. I'd like to see anyone else's if anyone still has them, and if you have any to spare, I'd be willing to pay for a male to breed mine with since she is showing breeding behaviors in spite of being in an all female tank.
 
6-7 years end of life span? Not really, cichlids can live much longer than that. I bet your fish lives longer than that. But that aside, the only I have ever seen them for sale was Tangled up in Cichlids.
 
Most acaras don't live as long as other cichlids. Most of the other people I know who had some have lost their adults already within the last year or two.
 
I've got Cichlasoma over 10 years old that are still breeding. They just need good care and not overfeeding them :)

The Cichlasoma sp. "Esmerlda Gold" are out there. I remember hearing about a couple of people breeding them (and not being able to give them away).

At the end of the day I think they're a (kind of) interesting (tannish-gold) color variety of C. amazonarum that Jeff Rapps imported once.

Most acaras don't live as long as other cichlids. Most of the other people I know who had some have lost their adults already within the last year or two.
 
They are very interesting fish and I've enjoyed my time with mine. They are surprisingly highly intelligent. I remember when I had them breeding the pair figured out I would take their fry as wrigglers so on the next spawn they dug multiple pits, some duds, and distributed the wrigglers throughout so I wouldn't be able to find all of them. Let's just say it worked. My male never got big enough to show his true potential but here's a good picture of the type of finnage they get.
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not my picture, but I just found out normal amazonarum gets the same finnage, so that seals the deal for me in terms of figuring out what species they are. Aside from the super long ventrals, they also get body length fin trailers.
I've got Cichlasoma over 10 years old that are still breeding. They just need good care and not overfeeding them :)

The Cichlasoma sp. "Esmerlda Gold" are out there. I remember hearing about a couple of people breeding them (and not being able to give them away).

At the end of the day I think they're a (kind of) interesting (tannish-gold) color variety of C. amazonarum that Jeff Rapps imported once.
would you be able to point me towards some of the other people breeding them?
 
Still having a hard time believing that’s a natural occurring strain..
Perhaps, the explanations as to the original acquisition of them has been rather shady but while it is a different kind of gene, we do have red dovii other red/white variants of central americans that regularly naturally occur.
 
Perhaps, the explanations as to the original acquisition of them has been rather shady but while it is a different kind of gene, we do have red dovii other red/white variants of central americans that regularly naturally occur.
Good point…but a fish that stays small and light colored seems unusual..
 
They don't stay too small, males hit around 7-8 inches, and besides that there are smaller and brighter colored fish they share waters with naturally
(cough cough)
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