What to keep with chuco microphthalmus

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I find this interesting because I'm keeping Theraps lentoginosus, (and in the past Chuco intermedia, and 3 Tomocichla species) all which come from similar rheophillic, clear to semi clear water habitats.
These habitats, have a scarcity of available food items, and are thus very sparsely populated unlike the slower flowing, more turbid waters with dense cichlid communities .
All the rheophillic cichlids (at least the ones I've kept) seem to be very intolerant of con-specifics, and if overfed, tend to be bloat prone.
My feeling is that in the confines of any, but the largest aquariums, non cichlids are probably the only reasonable tankmates. Swordtails (geographically correct) come to my mind, as they would be nonthreatening, and would go for tiny food scraps the cichlids find too small to bother with, they also appreciate fast flowing water.
Frequent small meals throughout the day as opposed to gut loading, with lots of water changes seem appropriate.



 
Thanks for the pictures Duane's. Is the last fish a wesselli? I'm going to grow out my group alone until they are 3-4" and will add some live bearers at that time. I have some small rio copan motas but it think they are way to aggressive to keep with the micros.
 
Yep, the last one is wesselli, and I agree about the motas being a bit much for the micros. Although they come from the same area, I believe they may prefer a different part of the stream, or habitat. I was snorkeling with some freidrichstali a few months back in car wash cenote, and although not exactly the same as motos, they seemed to be very at home is the still waters of the cenote simply lying in wait fpr prey to pass by.
jgentry said:
Thanks for the pictures Duane's. Is the last fish a wesselli? I'm going to grow out my group alone until they are 3-4" and will add some live bearers at that time. I have some small rio copan motas but it think they are way to aggressive to keep with the micros.
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I'm also keeping T. wesseli (from Zach no less)... They're some rough customers on each other but fortunately I have enough cutteri and a big Uruguayan pike to keep the peace.

I think that the folks on this thread + a couple more represent 75% of the US keepers of New World Cichlids that aren't umbees, festaes or red devils ;)

Matt
 
I'm growing out a group of 8 microphthamus that I got from Dan at COA back in the fall at about 1". Up until yesterday, I was growing them out in a 20 long with a group of 8 herichthys tamasopoensis, filtered only by a sponge filter and a box filter, so relatively low flow. The tank was on the bottom rack in my fish room, and honestly I rarely saw the micros. When I moved them yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised to find that all 16 fish that I put in the tank were thriving. The largest of the micros is over 2.5" and is starting to show the brilliant blue spangling. Both groups are now together in a 75 and everything seems to be out and about. I'm hoping that I have better luck with the micros this go around, as I purchased some of the adults Eric had before he moved and lost them to some weird disease shortly after I received them.

Not to hijack the thread, but I thought I'd share my experience with wesseli as well. I had a group of 6 that I grew out from 1" to about 4" in a 40 breeder. They all got along relatively well, with very little abuse on each other. At 4", I moved the group into a 5' 120 and added about 800 gph of powerheads to the tank. Maybe it was coincidence, that the tank move coincided with their sexual maturity, but 6 quickly became 2, as the apparent pair killed the other 4 within a matter of days. It wasn't much later that the male killed the female, all within the matter of 2 months. The lonely male was then exiled to a tank with bigger, meaner fish.
 
I had much the same experience with wesselli at maturity, they became very intolerant of each other, and as above, soon became just 1.
In trying to avoid the same scenario, my plan with the lentoginosus is to move them to a 6 ft long tank, with shallow fast flowing water, and lots of sight breaks at, or before maturity.
I tried this approach with Chuco intermedia, and they have been my most successful rheophillic species attempt so far.

 
I just went ahead and put the 1" micros in the 150g. I need to decorate it a little more but they are settling in. I may get a couple more of them and some wild type liver bearers to make them feel more comfortable.

Great info Jon, wesseli are little bastards. They remind me a lot of my experience with bartoni.

Nice pics Duanes, I may have to try them next.
 
duanes said:
Good luck with the micros, I'll be interested in your progress with them. I've wanted to try them myself, but haven't quite got around to it yet
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I'll try to keep this thread going as they progress (or epicly fail). I added a bag of mollies today to provide some movement and fry for food. I also got some river rock in the tank today. Trying to decide if that's enough rock or not. The micros seem to love it.

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