REC - that's bizarre, I'm not kidding - in around 5 weeks the fish has grown almost 2 inches. Fed hikari food sticks, and chopped cockles and big expensive prawns. Until yesterday he was in a small tank too, 30 g, now he's in a 180. He's really beefed up too, it's almost as thick as my 6 inch JD. In contrast, the 1 inch firemouth and salvini I bought with him, are about 1.5 inches now.
And the red terror I purchased months ago as a baby is only around 3 inches.
Mjime - the GT certainly looks nice and vibrant now.
I'll try and get a pic of mine, I only have very slow film at the moment, I'll see how it comes out.
Jason - I didn't realize GTs were that common. Are they as common as dempseys in America?
In europe they are not common. Put it this way, in England almost every fish store you go to that stocks anything more than community fish has dempseys, and usually texas cichlids too. They are both common. But you almost never see GTs.
I think GTs are better than both dempseys and texans. Though I agree that dempseys are beautiful fish, underrated because they are so common. A decent size male dempsey is quite spectacular, no doubt.
I prefer the variety of patterns and colours on the GT though, and I think they have nicer faces.
BTW it's funny you say that REC, about the aggression and jaw power. My little GT killed a ctenopoma and nicaraguensis, and just the other day half killed a salvini. I rescued the salvini in time and it's in a hospital tank now.
Not only that but I recently tried my festae in the GT's domain, and they fought viciously but the GT got the upper hand mainly because he looked to have more jaw power. The festae's face was far more marked up, with more bruised lips than the GT.
Though to give credit to the RT, he fought back every step of the way when he was freshly plonked into the Gt's tank, and now that the GT is in the Rt's tank he's just being chased around and bitten by the festae, and not fighting back.
