I have kept and bred P grandidieri "east coast gold", the standard P. oligacanthus, and P sp. "Tarantsy" (which may or may not be a location variant of the gold(?).
They seem to me to be Madagascars equivalent of Geophagus, preferring to be in a shoal, and sand sifting for food.
All 3 easily bred in my mineral rich, alkaline, 7.8 pH water in 125 gal tanks,.they were easy on well rooted plants, and mild mannered with tank mates.
Fed an algae based pellet, like NLS AlgaeMax, I kept water low in nitrate (5ppm) with frequent water changes (80-120% per week, in 30-40% intervals)
Above east coast gold, about 5"
directly below the standard oligacanthus Before I had a real camera
Below female oligacanthus with fry
https://hosting.photobucket.com/alb...05-1.jpg?width=1920&height=1080&fit=boundsand below P sp Tarantsy
Male above, female with feeding tub extended below
with spawn
since the spawn was in a community tank, I removed the eggs to a breeder box
after they became free swimming the fry went to
https://hosting.photobucket.com/alb...uu0madg.jpg?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds
a 20 gal to grow out with lots of algae to graze and fed Artemia.
The next spawn I left eggs and fry with the parents, and they were excellent parents
They first arrived as a group of 1-1.5" juvies and were grown out in a 55 with similar size Paratilapia "Andapa", and the Indian cichlid, Etoplus canarensus
The group soon outgrew the 55 and moved to the 6 ft tank, the 55 left to the smaller Etropus..