Acarichthys heckelii grow out

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
They are indeed large fish for their length, with very tall bodies, but they remain reasonably thin and are still very robust, agile cichlids. I've seen fish that are poorly kept max out at around 7", with larger well kept 'shoaling' specimens in well sized tanks around the 10" mark, maybe even larger.
 
I'd say they are closer to brasilinesis than they are to other geo's IME aggression wise towards each other, though more mild towards other fish by a little bit. But also I've only dealt with wild heckelii thus far, not captive bred.
 
I'd wait until hearing from japes ... a lot of times captive bred fish are more mild than wild caught (Guinacara and balzani come to mind). If I remember right, his didn't pay too much attention to his other geo's.
 
These are wild according to the vendor (Wetspotcx). They are starting to pick on my young orange heads that are a little smaller than them, but mostly just gesturing and nothing serious.

I think Japes added a few more, but ended up getting rid of the whole group because they turned mean. :(
 
They are quite mean towards each other as adults. I had a group of seven adults that insisted on beating the tar out of each other but no one else in the tank, such as my rotkeils. Smallest Hecklii was about 7" and biggest was over 9".

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They seem to be pretty quite rough on other heckelii and mine loved to nipe my other geo's as well. Don't plan on having a lot of trailers on your other geo's if you combine them. They don't seem to pay any attention to other non geo's though. I wouldn't consider them anything close to a brasilinesis or red bahia though. Those guys would murder a heckelii with ease. I keep a red bahia with my Esondido pair to clean up after them and he holds his own.
 
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