defenitly not out of the question...maybe I can email the store asking some identiy help...Dude the amount of fish I have got from the LFS that weren't named on their system is at least in the 20's. especially africans. They all come from farms usually in Singapore where they breed multiple species and some fish get mixed into other tanks and what not. Most SA/CA cichlids look identical when fry anyway. It really isn't out of the question that you have a chocolate cichlid.
Looks like a young really nicely coloured chocolate
I know it isn't a nic, I am thinking it could be port acura but not shore... you are an experiend fish keeper so i gues it is probibly a choclate...I'm going to be honest with you, I've kept cichlids for 12 years now. the people on this site are much more reliable than the people in the LFS. I've kept nicaraguensis and chocolate multiple times from small sizes. chocolates that size will show colour. Nics don't colour up until they hit the 4"-5" mark.
pretty fast compared to my other fish... i gues I will just have to wait till it is larger...so far I would say definately a chocolate, they really do change body shape a lot as they grow but that face says it all. I've seen chocolate fry that look like that. Your best bet would be to just let it grow. they don't tend to have the best growth rates. Mine gets fed every day on high protein food and hes only grown from 2" to 8" since may. granted thats impressive, but even on a high protein diet you can only really get 1" per month from them if not less.
pretty fast compared to my other fish... i gues I will just have to wait till it is larger...
I feed my fish well so it should grow fast...yeah they eat a lot if you let them, but they don't seem to grow as quickly as amphilophus/parachromis/vieja. they have the same growth rate as severums