It blows my mind how fast these guys grow.I could only estimate.his age ... he was picked up for me at the American cichlid association convention the end of July which he was about 3" at that time........ Right now hes 7" so it's safe to say that hes approximately 7 months old...... Here's a picture of him early August.....
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This subject came up recently and while this may be common knowledge to some members I thought that I would share some information from some old research papers that discuss this in fish found within the midas complex.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0016648075901367
Hormonal control of the nuchal hump in the cichlid fish Cichlasoma citrinellum
C.R. Bleick - Zoology Department, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720 USA
George Barlow also discusses this subject with regards to citrinellum kept in captivity in the following paper.
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1022&context=ichthynicar&sei-redir=1&referer=http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=the%20midas%20cichlid%20in%20nicaragua%20barlow&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdigitalcommons.unl.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1022%26context%3Dichthynicar&ei=8JWJT7nFFtLRiAKBx_3gCw&usg=AFQjCNEYWNS0_mv2VpOzUIKaGjulEpIU6Q#search="midas cichlid nicaragua barlow"
I found it funny that Barlow found some of the massive humps seen on males kept in captivity as grotesque, and noted that nuchal humps of this size far exceed anything seen in nature.