Id like to see your chocolate cichlids!

[ryansmith83]

Chocolates are very easy to find locally and online. Almost all wholesalers sell H. temporalis so if you have a local shop just ask if they can get you some. I would not mix them with Central Americans like Vieja. Mine have done well with large geos, Heros, and medium sized acaras. They can be intolerant of their own kind. In most cases they are a pouty species like oscars and if you keep them with belligerent or aggressive tankmates they will often make themselves scarce. I’d keep them with other medium to large fish that are on the more peaceful side.

I don’t keep H. temporalis currently, but I do have four of their rarer relative, H. coryphaenoides, the Rio Negro chocolate cichlid or yellow-nape chocolate cichlid.

 

[Theos.dad]

Chocolates are very easy to find locally and online. Almost all wholesalers sell H. temporalis so if you have a local shop just ask if they can get you some. I would not mix them with Central Americans like Vieja. Mine have done well with large geos, Heros, and medium sized acaras. They can be intolerant of their own kind. In most cases they are a pouty species like oscars and if you keep them with belligerent or aggressive tankmates they will often make themselves scarce. I’d keep them with other medium to large fish that are on the more peaceful side.

I don’t keep H. temporalis currently, but I do have four of their rarer relative, H. coryphaenoides, the Rio Negro chocolate cichlid or yellow-nape chocolate cichlid.

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Thanks you. This is the kind of info I was looking for. I had no clue the coryphaenoides even existed. Heading to Google to check it out now.

As of now my plan will be to keep a single chocolate with a severum and possibly a couple regular blue acara and about 5 to 7 topajos.

 

[ryansmith83]

Those tankmates should be fine. Given adequate room they can get out of each other’s way. If you buy them around the same size at the same time it should make things go smoother. Your only real concern is whether keeping just two acaras will result in one tormenting the other.

 

[stiker]

The images aren’t the greatest. Pictured is a wild caught pair from the Rio Ucayali in Peru. They were housed with a group of Geophagus Sveni and a group of Chalceus Erythrurus. The first two images are of them in a previous blackwater tank.

In my experience I have found them to be quite aggressive, even more so when they had fry (obviously)

The first image is the female with fry, the second the male with fry. The female is the lighter of the two.