Native water condition for Geophagus mirabilis

[jake37]

Does anyone know the native condition for Geophagus mirabilis; there was an article where a fellow was breeding them in tds 480/ph8.5 water; and not sure if that is native or they are just very adapatable.

Also any opinions of mirabillis vs sveni in terms of personalities; looks, size and suitability for community aquarium ?

 

[duanes]

They are from the Aripuana river, said to be a clear water river, with a light color sand substrate.
The water is soft, low in mineral salts, pH is in the mid 6s average, e with water temps in the low 80sF.
youtube.comGeophagus - Guide to Amazonian Eartheaters - nearly all Geophagus species !Of the 31 described Geophagus species, 20 belong in the G.surinamensi-group. Check out the Geophagus guide with 16 of the 20 species and their habitats in th...

 

[neutrino]

From a stretch of the the Rio Aripuana above the Dardanelos/Andorinhas falls, which from what I can find includes areas of rapids. So they may appreciate current. I've tried to find water chemistry information for that stretch of river and have yet to find much of anything. Closest I found was some literature on minerals found in soil samples. They do seem to be fairly adaptable. The breeding article I saw a few years ago was in Amazonas magazine, which said pH 8.3. I doubt very much that matches their native conditions. Hard to find the article anymore, though I've recently seen an image of part of it. I kept mine at pH 7.4, temperature 78-80, moderate hardness, and they did well.

 

[jake37]

Someone made an electronic copy of the article available to me and they were breeding them in relatively hard water with tds 480 (gh 150ppm); so definitely not soft and acidic. They said they were easy to breed and 'friendly' with other bottom dwellers including dwarf cichlid. That article said they like flowing water but did not go into detail (slow/fast/strong current).

Any idea how these would compare to sveni in a community aquarium ?

 

[duanes]

Until recently, G mirabilis was also known as G sp cf. argyrostictus "Aripuana, even as late as 2011.
It was officially described as G mirabilis in 2014.
So it may be possible to get info under the old name. It sometimes takes a while for info to catch up to naming taxonomy
I looked into the old name and found a number of pages of detailed info under that old name in my copy of the book South American Eartheaters by Thomas Weidner .

 

[neutrino]

Any idea how these would compare to sveni in a community aquarium ?

I kept them with sveni, actually. For me they were a bit feistier than the sveni, pushed them around a bit on occasion, but nothing serious. Generally peaceful toward others in the tank, which included Peru scalare, L128 and L260 plecos, Aequidens metae, all wild... and a wild Brazil Heros for a short time.

 

[jake37]

I kept them with sveni, actually. For me they were a bit feistier than the sveni, pushed them around a bit on occasion, but nothing serious. Generally peaceful toward others in the tank, which included Peru scalare, L128 and L260 plecos, Aequidens metae, all wild... and a wild Brazil Heros for a short time.

Do you think either species would be ok with GBR and if one would do better than the other ?

 

[neutrino]

Do you think either species would be ok with GBR and if one would do better than the other ?

It's been so long since I kept rams I don't personally have an authoritative answer for that. I have seen geo tanks with rams and I wouldn't expect most surinamensis type geos to bother them, at least given a tank large enough so they don't compete for territory. When I did have rams it was in planted tanks and they liked to pick out a spot and spend much of their time there-- this was in busy communities with discus, angels, Laetacara, Mesonauta, etc., maybe in a tank to themselves the rams would have been all over the tank more.

Since for me the mirabilis were the feistier of the two species and did push the sveni around a bit-- also my current sveni (I've had more than one group) are quite peaceful aside from occasional minor bickering amongst themselves (I'm sure like most species sveni can vary but ime they're generally quite peaceful), my guess is mirabilis would probably be fine, but of the two, they'd be the more likely to fuss with the rams a bit.

 

[jake37]

It's been so long since I kept rams I don't personally have an authoritative answer for that. I have seen geo tanks with rams and I wouldn't expect most surinamensis type geos to bother them, at least given a tank large enough so they don't compete for territory. When I did have rams it was in planted tanks and they liked to pick out a spot and spend much of their time there-- this was in busy communities with discus, angels, Laetacara, Mesonauta, etc., maybe in a tank to themselves the rams would have been all over the tank more.

Since for me the mirabilis were the feistier of the two species and did push the sveni around a bit-- also my current sveni (I've had more than one group) are quite peaceful aside from occasional minor bickering amongst themselves (I'm sure like most species sveni can vary but ime they're generally quite peaceful), my guess is mirabilis would probably be fine, but of the two, they'd be the more likely to fuss with the rams a bit.

Thanks. One other question - do you remember the size of hte two species (m/f) and if either species of geo are pair forming or more polygamous. I kind of really like the look of the mirabilis but it is soundling like the sveni might be the better fit. Originally I was going to go with winemilleri but folks were saying they got up to 12 inches and would be way too big for most dwarf cichilid.

 

[neutrino]

From what I've seen mirabilis 7-8 inches, sveni a bit larger, but both seem to have variable max size.

...Keep forgetting you asked which look better. Tough call, both very nice, matter of taste, maybe. Excellent specimens of mirabilis, I'd give an edge to mirabilis, but not by much and not all of them live up to it. Imo the main edge to mirabilis is they're rarer and much harder to come by. They seem to be available in the UK lately, haven't seen them in the US for a while. Both beautiful fish, but for exclusivity, if it was me and I could find mirabilis (and the price wasn't an issue) I'd jump on them. It seems like sveni have become a mainstay in the hobby, so not hard to find.