New pick up, something uncommon

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Agree, a beautiful easy to care for fish, no heater, no special food, or giant tank required.
And here in Milwaukee they are also fairly common, may be partially my fault.
Most of the time when I put them up for trade, there is little or no response.
Just throw a pair in the pond in spring and forget them until fall, then pull out a couple hundred.
Rays_4life said:
There pretty common here in Michigan I can tell you and not much interest in the fry ... Some species just don't catch on I guess they are beautiful I don't see why


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Wow thanks for all the pictures and info Duanes I am seriously jealous of the uruguayan species you are keeping. I was thinking of maybe setting up a seperate tank down the line and getting some gymnos to put with them.

The picture of the breeding pair makes me have some faith in my "pair". I purposely picked a small darker colored and slightly differently patterned fish as a proposed female. and my smaller "female" looks a lot like hte image of the female on the last page, lots of stripes.

What size can they start breeding? To me they their body shape reminds me a lot of a tiny umbee but colorwise yeah they are reminiscent of Festae. Overall they seem to fit into my aquarium really nicely, the male I have is the biggest fish in there and he will occasionally chase of red head geos of the same size but actual aggression towards other fish is very minimal, its mostly just being territorial I guess.

Very interesting species to watch, they hide alot under overhangs and do the chocolate cichlid up facing angle quite a lot. I would recommend these fish to anyone
 
First time they spawned for me was in a 55 gal.
Uruguayan communities can be very interesting tanks.
Beyond the Gymnos and Australoheros, there are Uruguyan Crenicichla (pike cichlids) corys, tetras and plenty of other cool water types to hold interest.
Below, last years 100 gal community

Cory erhardti

I also use high altitude Mexican live bearers such as Xenatoca eiseni, that like cool water, as dithers.
 
It's interesting that one type of fish can be very rare in one region, and common in the other. But in general, the popularity of CA/SA can never match that of African cichlid in LFSs or auctions. People are less familiar with CA/SA other than a few common species, many CA/SA grow too large, and most CA/SA juvies are drab looking which discourage people from trying. Red Ceibal don't fit the norm. They don't grow big and begin coloring out small.
 
I'm a big fan of chanchitos (Australoheros sp.) and have several varieties that I've collected. Probably my favorites other than convicts and acaras!

Red Ceibals are the only type of chanchito that's farmed in Florida (and thus available in LFS and the hobby). What's funny (ironic?) is that this variety is from a very small stream near Centurion, UR. Just about every waterway has a "different" chanchito. There are some really nice smaller chanchitos (e.g. A. scitulus from Rio Santa Lucia), some big (like 10-12"), mean ones (e.g. A. facetum from Laguna del Diario), some red-breasted ones (e.g. A. scitulus from Zanja Honda) and everything in between.

Most people kill chanchitos by keeping them either too warm or keeping them with Central Americans or other aggressive fish. I've really not had good luck keeping them with much other than Uruguayan acaras and smaller pikes.

I give all of mine a winter cool down and they love it. Unheated tanks in my basement with weekly cold water changes keep the water ~55F in the winter. They spawn in the spring when the water warms up to the low-70s. They're really nice fish. Just need to be treated like the neotropical fish that they are.

Matt


tiger15 said:
It's interesting that one type of fish can be very rare in one region, and common in the other. But in general, the popularity of CA/SA can never match that of African cichlid in LFSs or auctions. People are less familiar with CA/SA other than a few common species, many CA/SA grow too large, and most CA/SA juvies are drab looking which discourage people from trying. Red Ceibal don't fit the norm. They don't grow big and begin coloring out small.
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