Not many people here have owned (or even seen) this little cichlid, so I figured I'd start a thread for them.
I first saw Heroina isonycterina a few years ago when I was rabidly collecting all the different species of severums. These fish are part of the Heroini tribe, which also includes the genera Heros (the severums), Hypselecara (the chocolate cichlids), Hoplarchus (the true parrots), Uaru, Symphysodon (discus), and several more. They were given the genus name Heroina due to their resemblance to severums. Heroina is the feminine form of Heros, which were derived from the Greek words heroine and hero.
These fish were first described in 1996 and have occasionally been available in Europe. Several Google searches revealed tank-bred fry being passed around France, Germany, UK, and a few other countries. Occasionally they pop up on import lists overseas but I had no luck finding the fish here in the US. Dan Ye-Jennings at American Cichlids had a tank-bred pair some time ago, but I think she lost one of them and all chances of fry went out the window. Apparently, 2012 was a good year for imports out of Colombia. Both Dan and Jeff Rapps at Tangled Up in Cichlids offered the fish for sale this spring and I managed to grab a group from each of them.
On a purely superficial level the fish do resemble little severums. They're mostly brown in color at a small size with a blue sheen on the head and gills. The larger three fish from Jeff are a pretty copper-brown color with red markings on their sides and small black freckles, making them appear similar to Heros severus. They have large, bulging red eyes (at least compared to severums), a slightly elongated snout, and quite a mouth. As far as attitude goes, they are far different than most severums. The conspecific aggression is pretty strong. They are constantly chasing and nipping each other. I've found that this is worse when they're in a species tank, so I've mixed the two groups with other cichlid grow-outs to calm them down a bit. My four from Dan are between 2 - 3", while the six from Jeff are between 2 - 4". Their appetite seems endless and they will eat until they can barely swim. Their mouth extends a lot further than I expected when sucking up food -- it's not as wide as the basketmouth cichlids, but it does have a pretty impressive reach for such a small fish.
I'll update this thread to chart their progress. My hope is to eventually make some F1s available. Once they are finished with quarantine I'll be mixing them into my larger tanks to grow them out.
I apologize for the poor lighting and focus in this video; I made it with my iPhone in a dim room with a tank that doesn't have a light. I ended up dumping in way more pellets than I wanted to (I was trying to operate the camera and feed them at the same time), but as you'll see, they pretty much eat all of them anyway. The fish do look a bit rough and thin but remember they've only been here for a day!
[video=youtube;J25AiEEBPrI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J25AiEEBPrI[/video]
I first saw Heroina isonycterina a few years ago when I was rabidly collecting all the different species of severums. These fish are part of the Heroini tribe, which also includes the genera Heros (the severums), Hypselecara (the chocolate cichlids), Hoplarchus (the true parrots), Uaru, Symphysodon (discus), and several more. They were given the genus name Heroina due to their resemblance to severums. Heroina is the feminine form of Heros, which were derived from the Greek words heroine and hero.
These fish were first described in 1996 and have occasionally been available in Europe. Several Google searches revealed tank-bred fry being passed around France, Germany, UK, and a few other countries. Occasionally they pop up on import lists overseas but I had no luck finding the fish here in the US. Dan Ye-Jennings at American Cichlids had a tank-bred pair some time ago, but I think she lost one of them and all chances of fry went out the window. Apparently, 2012 was a good year for imports out of Colombia. Both Dan and Jeff Rapps at Tangled Up in Cichlids offered the fish for sale this spring and I managed to grab a group from each of them.
On a purely superficial level the fish do resemble little severums. They're mostly brown in color at a small size with a blue sheen on the head and gills. The larger three fish from Jeff are a pretty copper-brown color with red markings on their sides and small black freckles, making them appear similar to Heros severus. They have large, bulging red eyes (at least compared to severums), a slightly elongated snout, and quite a mouth. As far as attitude goes, they are far different than most severums. The conspecific aggression is pretty strong. They are constantly chasing and nipping each other. I've found that this is worse when they're in a species tank, so I've mixed the two groups with other cichlid grow-outs to calm them down a bit. My four from Dan are between 2 - 3", while the six from Jeff are between 2 - 4". Their appetite seems endless and they will eat until they can barely swim. Their mouth extends a lot further than I expected when sucking up food -- it's not as wide as the basketmouth cichlids, but it does have a pretty impressive reach for such a small fish.
I'll update this thread to chart their progress. My hope is to eventually make some F1s available. Once they are finished with quarantine I'll be mixing them into my larger tanks to grow them out.
I apologize for the poor lighting and focus in this video; I made it with my iPhone in a dim room with a tank that doesn't have a light. I ended up dumping in way more pellets than I wanted to (I was trying to operate the camera and feed them at the same time), but as you'll see, they pretty much eat all of them anyway. The fish do look a bit rough and thin but remember they've only been here for a day!
[video=youtube;J25AiEEBPrI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J25AiEEBPrI[/video]
