Considering buying Australoheros oblongum

[humdedum]

I have a 50 gallon tank with some clay caves and two clumps of hornwort. Currently there are three platys in it and the temperature is about 77 F. pH is about 8.4 and water is correspondingly hard. Filters are a Penguin 350 and a Penguin 200. There's also a Penguin 100 that will be leaving soon (I had only added it for cycling).

On another forum, Toddnbecka offered some juvies he was selling, and I wanted to make sure that 6 will fit in a four-foot tank?

Is the temperature okay, or should it be closer to 75? The only other cichlids I've kept are convicts and angels, so I really am not a whole cichlid expert. I really would like to spawn them (it's a rule of any fish I keep, lol -- if I buy them, I need have at least half a chance of breeding them!), and I'm afraid the platys might dart in and gobble up the fry/eggs.

I've gone through several pages of Google results for "Australoheros oblongum" and 95% of the results come back to this forum...I guess it's an omen or something.

For fry, there's an extra ten gallon that I could easily set up with an already-cycled filter but would that be way too cramped? I know a 20-long would be closing in on ideal, but my only 20long is occupied by two very murderous convicts.

Thanks in advance for your plethora of information!

 

[abarilot]

I'd say you are good to go! These fish can handle a variety of temps so I wouldn't be too concerned. In Uruguay they experience temps from the 50s up to the 90s! As for breeding talk to Toddnbecka cuz I'm sure he'll tell you what he did. Btw welcome to MFK!

 

[humdedum]

Thanks for the quick response! And also for the welcome. You guys have some really amazing fish going and I wish I had the money to do likewise!

 

[cacichlids]

I've kept australoheros red ceibal. As far as I know they come from Uruguay and they can survive much lower temperatures than many cichlids, I've heard of people keeping em in aquariums with no heaters. I know they live in rivers that get close to freezing in winter.

As for breeding, someone told me they need the tank to cool down and then heat up, I bought mine as a breeding pair and the bond broke as soon as they were released in my tank. they never bred again or showed any color (very dull murky brown) so I gave em away. I suspect the temperature might have had something to do since my tank is always in the 78-86 range.

Other than that they seemed very peaceful and their breeding dress in the LFS was easily one of the most beautiful breeding colors I've seen in any cichlid, shame they lost it.

 

[peathenster]

Nice choice of fish Bill ("MonteSS" here) has a lot of experience with these guys.

If I'm not mistaken, this species is from Brazil (not Uruguay) and don't necessary need the cool period. I'm a bit concerned about your pH and hardness, but it's worth a try.

 

[cacichlids]

Nice choice of fish Bill ("MonteSS" here) has a lot of experience with these guys.

If I'm not mistaken, this species is from Brazil (not Uruguay) and don't necessary need the cool period. I'm a bit concerned about your pH and hardness, but it's worth a try.

Australoheros red ceibal is def. from uruguay. Don't know about "oblongum".

 

[peathenster]

Australoheros red ceibal is def. from uruguay. Don't know about "oblongum".

Not talking about your red ceibal...just to point out that not all Australoheros are from Uruguay and that different species in the genus may require different care.

 

[cacichlids]

Not talking about your red ceibal...just to point out that not all Australoheros are from Uruguay and that different species in the genus may require different care.

My bad, I tried looking for australoheros oblongum and couldn't find anything at all so I figured they came from the same region.

 

[cacichlids]

Just found an article, very nice. Apparently they range from Argentina all the way up to Brazil.

'Chanchito' is a common name for a whole family of cichlids from Uruguay. Australoheros oblongum is the smallest and most mellow species of this complex.

Although an extremely attractive and relatively easy fish to care for, the Australoheros oblongum remains extremely rare in the hobby. Information is currently limited as well as documentation or pictures. It appears that there are very few owners of this species in the US. There were some brought back from Uruguay some years ago. However, more people are now collecting at the location they were originally caught and are no longer finding Australoheros oblongum at that location.

The chanchito is made up of at least three South American species, Cichlasoma facetum, C. autochthon and C. oblongum (Leibel, 1996; 2004). These occur in southeastern Brazil and Argentina, the La Plata basin, Uruguay, Paraguay and the Rio Parana basin (Leibel, 1996; 2004). The designation of chanchito, or the Spanish 'piglet,' derived from "its habits of fighting like a young pig and of uprooting plants" (Mellen, 1927). It has also been coined the 'Chameleon fish,' or "Acara Camaleao," by the Brazilians where the fish originated, Camaleao meaning "chameleon" in Portuguese (Klee, 2004), because of its capacity of dramatic change in colors due to mood and environmental conditions. Many fish are now known to exhibit such changes, but if we keep in mind that this was the first opportunity to note such behavior, the observation resulted in quite an understandable stir.

http://www.cichlidae.com/article.php?id=371

http://projectaquaria.blogspot.com/2011/05/australoheros-oblongum.html

 

[peathenster]

My bad, I tried looking for australoheros oblongum and couldn't find anything at all so I figured they came from the same region.

Not at all. There's not much info on this species. I think Matt mentioned it a while ago when we were talking about Cichlasoma and Australoheros. It's from north of Uruguay for sure, but I'm not positive if it's Brazilian.