mayan cichlid in a marine set up???

[Mbargas]

hey all im looking for some concrete info on false red terror cichlids! i bought a young mayan by accident trying to buy a festae, there seems to b e a silver lining though!
i read on a few fish profiles that they prefere brackish if not total marine enviroments! i read also that they had been seen spawning on the corals in the ocean near florida!!! is this true? as im a die hard cichlid fan marine fish have never excited me although ive always admired the coralsa, anenome's and such....

you can prob see where im going with this, i have a vision of a large mayan in a beauty of a marine tank!

anyone ever tryed it?

Mayan cichlids are euryhaline, and inhabit freshwater, estuarine and marine regions with salinities ranging from 0 to 40 ppt (SG 1.030) in their native range, (Atlantic slope drainages from Mexico to Nicaragua, and more recently in South Florida.)

With such a broad range of salinity tolerance one might consider them indifferent to salinity, but I read one study that suggested that they do best at salinities between 10 and 20 ppt (SG 1.0075 to 1.015)

IMHO, a more important question is compatibility, i.e. How would they get along with other reef fishes? Damselfish are similar in behavior, but they tend to be somewhat smaller. My first thought would be to keep them with Segeant Majoors which are somewhat larger than most damsels.

 

[duanes]

I have seen the group that lives in the mangrove around Isla de Mujeras, and it has been suggested they may actually be a separate species, or a sub-species, and have evolved to over millennia to live in that saline environment.
Just as the group that lives near Progesso in totally fresh water cenotes, may have evolved for that strictly fresh water environment.
So trying to randomly stick a fresh water variant in high salinity may not be a great idea.
If you want a uropthalmus to exist, and be healthy in ocean salinity, I would believe you'd need to acquire the Isla Mujeres variant, or for example, at least some caught in a brackish Everglades area.

 

[Mbargas]

I have seen the group that lives in the mangrove around Isla de Mujeras, and it has been suggested they may actually be a separate species, or a sub-species, and have evolved to over millennia to live in that saline environment.
Just as the group that lives near Progesso in totally fresh water cenotes, may have evolved for that strictly fresh water environment.
So trying to randomly stick a fresh water variant in high salinity may not be a great idea.
If you want a uropthalmus to exist, and be healthy in ocean salinity, I would believe you'd need to acquire the Isla Mujeres variant, or for example, at least some caught in a brackish Everglades area.

Excellent point. Just as there is a subspecies of Cyprinodon variegatus (hubbsi) that lives exclusively in FW lakes rather than brackish and marine environments. However, the Mayans in Florida have only been there in recent years or decades, probably not enough time for them to evolve into distinct subspecies with preferred salinity parameters.

 

[Chub_by]

A few years back someone here posted a scientific paper stating they had been found in a reef some 2 kilometres offshore. Definetely need to get a strain that's used to SW I'd say.

 

[Mbargas]

Good article about Cichlids and salinity tolerance. The Black Belt Cichlid is another one to consider:

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/51532/Oldfield_Saltwater_Cichlids_2004.pdf

 

[duanes]

Evolution can happen with cichlids fairly quickly.
If a pair of cichlids are stranded in a certain environment and spawn (for example a pair of uropthalmus stranded in Isla de Mujeres), and in that hostile environment maybe 998 fry of 1000 egg spawn die, but if only 2 have the gene that allows them to survive, their progeny may be able to, over a short period populate that body of water.
Take the Tilapine species Alcolapia, that live in ultra-saline waters of Lake Natron.
The lake is only inches deep, regularly reaches water temps of over 100'F and has a salinity more saline than the ocean.
I have had a female of that that put down eggs, and later revert to becoming a male when all other males died, and spawn.

as a female above, carrying eggs above.
Below after becoming a male and spawning with a larger female.

 

[duanes]

Allow me to elaborate on a "short" time.
I'm speaking in terms of geologic years, meaning for example 10,000 - 100,000 years as being a short period of time.
I believe the uropthalmus of Isla Mujeres (Heros troscellii) was described in 1867 by Steindachner (only a few moments ago in geologic time), so the ancestral uropthalmus could have ended up in the islands mangrove millions of years earlier after some volcanic or other catastrophic (storm) event separated them from their freshwater brethren (maybe as far back as when the meteor crashed to earth, creating the Caribbean) and have taken 10,000 to a million+ years time to develop a sustainable salt water tolerant population, or possibly only a few hundred,, not realistically an aquarium line breeding concept.
.

 

[Mbargas]

I saw some of them in Cancun several years ago in an inlet that had a large growth of Caulerpa algae. The salinity was no doubt close to full strength seawater. It seems to me that there are no significant barriers between the island and the mainland.

 

[Mbargas]

Allow me to elaborate on a "short" time.
I'm speaking in terms of geologic years, meaning for example 10,000 - 100,000 years as being a short period of time.
I believe the uropthalmus of Isla Mujeres (Heros troscellii) was described in 1867 by Steindachner (only a few moments ago in geologic time), so the ancestral uropthalmus could have ended up in the islands mangrove millions of years earlier after some volcanic or other catastrophic (storm) event separated them from their freshwater brethren (maybe as far back as when the meteor crashed to earth, creating the Caribbean) and have taken 10,000 to a million+ years time to develop a sustainable salt water tolerant population, or possibly only a few hundred,, not realistically an aquarium line breeding concept.
.

It would be interesting to know which variant was introduced into Florida. Perhaps there was more than one introduction over the years, since it was first noted in 1983.
https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=453

 

[Toiletcar]

I think catch location is important when doing a brackish/salt cichlid. Just because one population can tolerate salt doesn't mean one that has never been exposed to salt can. At least in the long term.