Dwarf Cichlids are still cichlids ...

Ever notice the best times for pics seems to be when your tank is all nasty?

So currently these are my only fish, a pair of Laetacara araguaiae ... one of the dwarf acaras. I had the room lights out to watch a movie and noticed the male was out and glassbanging his reflection, all two and a half inches of him. So since he is usually hiding from me, as he is the more shy of the pair, I grabbed the roomy's point and shoot. These are some of best looking shots of the fish (not the tank!) I've gotten of any of the fish I've had. A DSLR is on the list when some free money comes up.

The tank doesn't usually look this bad btw, it is coming off a total rescape after a 5 24 hour light binge. The reason for this is this pair had their first group of eggs recently, and the free hit the free swimming stage right as I was going out of town to house/dog sit. So I figured the extra light would encourage algae growth (which it did far more than I thought) and allow the free something to nibble on. Sadly only about 12 fry survived by the time I got home, and the next day none were to be found. The rescape was due to the male showing aggression to the female, wanting to breed again. You'll notice some fraying on her tail fin and slight scale damage under her dorsal fin. Didn't even get a chance to rewipe down the inside of the glass.

But the reason for the title is the fact that while I was trying to take these pics, the male was busy glassbanging his reflection even though the female was courting him. She even gave him a few fairly strong hits ... didn't phase him at all.   The pics show the female's purple and copper tones which couldn't be seen in my previous photos of them. The point and shoot was not up to the task of getting him with gills full spread and actually hitting the glass.

The pair:
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The male:
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The female:
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The female with the out of focus male flaring:
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One more with the male acting all tough:
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I like them. They look like they are smiling.

your acara's are looking great, keep it up.

Beautiful pair. I hope the next spawn goes better for you. And my L. robertsi pair have the copper tones to them also...it is hard to catch on film but so stunning in person. Love the purple of this pair...I like it much better than the blue variant.

"Dwarf  Cichlids are still cichlids"

I agree! I get lip locking between my Dwarf pikes and largest Apistogrammas. The males battle it out once in a while flairing up, boasting fins and colors. No damage as of yet between species.

What's cool about dwarfs is they have the same attitudes as their large cousins but what's neat is when I house dwarfs in a 140 gallon tank is like Maddness putting his Dovii in a 1500 gallon tank & being able to put in other species :)This is one of the reasons I switched to dwarfs from large cichlids. I wasn't able to have a bunch of tanks & my large cichlids at the time kept making my large tank into species only tanks...lol!

These Acara are awesome & would love the opportunity to house this species.

Cichlids have attitude and personality no matter what their size. Though not a dwarf, I kept a solo male convict in a 29g tank. Tons of personality out of the little guy. Kind of miss having a non-monster sized fish at times.

Dwarf cichlids are my favorite! Nice looking pair you have.

Hey Those fish are nice! I don't even think I've seen those in a book before.

dwarfpike wrote:But the reason for the title is the fact that while I was trying to take these pics, the male was busy glassbanging his reflection even though the female was courting him. She even gave him a few fairly strong hits ... didn't phase him at all.  

If I had a nickel for everytime a girl was flirting with me but I was too busy yelling at myself in the mirror to notice...

...anyways, love the colors on those guys!  Great pics

CrazedAce wrote:I like them. They look like they are smiling.

Heh. I haven't heard that term in a while. Back in the 90's Laetacara were known as smiling acaras actually.

Madness wrote:your acara's are looking great, keep it up.

Thanks Madness. I wasn't sure they are large enough for you to notice them.  

cichlid-gal wrote:Beautiful pair.  I hope the next spawn goes better for you.  And my L. robertsi pair have the copper tones to them also...it is hard to catch on film but so stunning in person.  Love the purple of this pair...I like it much better than the blue variant.

Oooh. I saw your L. robertsi videos over on CF!!! Love those guys. Westies are so under rated. I have to agree with you about the purple race, even though I prefer blue. The blues have gold, and these have copper. Copper is such a rare color to see on fish. It's why Harlequin Rasboras are one of my favorite dither fish.

fishNAbowl wrote:"Dwarf  Cichlids are still cichlids"

I agree! I get lip locking between my Dwarf pikes and largest Apistogrammas. The males battle it out once in a while flairing up, boasting fins and colors. No damage as of yet between species.

What's cool about dwarfs is they have the same attitudes as their large cousins but what's neat is when I house dwarfs in a 140 gallon tank is like Maddness putting his Dovii in a 1500 gallon tank & being able to put in other species :)This is one of the reasons I switched to dwarfs from large cichlids. I wasn't able to have a bunch of tanks & my large cichlids at the time kept making my large tank into species only tanks...lol!

These Acara are awesome & would love the opportunity to house this species.

Yeah, sometimes it's nice seeing them being able to act natural in a big tank. But I usually don't have the self control to do that, the bigger tank I get ... the bigger the cichlids I get.  

DMD123 wrote:Cichlids have attitude and personality no matter what their size. Though not a dwarf, I kept a solo male convict in a 29g tank. Tons of personality out of the little guy. Kind of miss having a non-monster sized fish at times.

Truely. It's kind of sad you can't buy actual convicts anymore without paying large shipping fees though.  

sea1 wrote:Dwarf cichlids are my favorite!  Nice looking pair you have.

Danke!!!

anthony wrote:Hey Those fish are nice! I don't even think I've seen those in a book before.

They used to go by Laetacara sp. 'Buckelkopf' ... and when first imported, they were the blue and gold race instead of these purple and copper ones.

Lamental Jester wrote:If I had a nickel for everytime a girl was flirting with me but I was too busy yelling at myself in the mirror to notice...

...anyways, love the colors on those guys!  Great pics

You know ... I can totally see that for some strange reason.  

And thanks!!!

Lamental Jester wrote:If I had a nickel for everytime a girl was flirting with me but I was too busy yelling at myself in the mirror to notice...

typical guy...

DwarfPike I just recently found out about dwarf cichlids, I love my GBR he has the best personality!

loving those dwarfs. plenty of goodies in that tank to feed some babies. i dont see how some like these big ole cichlids, its my dwarf shellies that always give me a run for my money. still startles me everytime one bites me, despite keeping shellies on and off for nearly a decade . theyre like dovii but packed into a neat little 1 inch package

MorganEA wrote:

Lamental Jester wrote:If I had a nickel for everytime a girl was flirting with me but I was too busy yelling at myself in the mirror to notice...

typical guy...

DwarfPike I just recently found out about dwarf cichlids, I love my GBR he has the best personality!

The mirrors love us, what can we say?   And yeah, the nice thing about dwarves is you get all that personality and can still have plants.

Anthraxx wrote:loving those dwarfs. plenty of goodies in that tank to feed some babies. i dont see how some like these big ole cichlids, its my dwarf shellies that always give me a run for my money. still startles me everytime one bites me, despite keeping shellies on and off for nearly a decade . theyre like dovii but packed into a neat little 1 inch package

It was very faint, but I could still hear him when he hit the glass a few times. Found that amusing actually. I actually do love the big cichlids, I've just always been limited in living conditions that forced smaller tanks on me. Thus the dwarf cichlids.

very nice dwarfs! they have great color with a nice amount of blue. im guessing they are more aggressive than apistos with the glass banging and all

lloyd378 wrote:very nice dwarfs!  they have great color with a nice amount of blue.  im guessing they are more aggressive than apistos with the glass banging and all

Yeah, they are more feisty than apistos ... but honestly I was rather shocked he was doing it. I've had a dwarf pike cichlid do it before, but I've kept two other Laetacara before and neither species ever pulled that trick off.

At it again ...
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Female fanning:
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Sorry about the date stamp, didn't realize the roomy re-enabled it.

and wigglers ... darn point and shoot sucks at this:
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Congrats on the babies.  

fishNAbowl wrote:Awesome!

DMD123 wrote:Congrats on the babies.  

Thanks!!! I'll have a couple of days before heading out of town this time to feed them, we'll see if I can actually get some fry to survive this time.

Congrats, and looking good!

Well, a sad update. I was gone for the past week out of town, and came back to the tank at 68F and the male laying on his side panting hard and slightly curled up ... classic nitrate poisoning signs. The female was no where in sight. A quick test showed nitrites somewhere between 80-160ppm, which given the tank had a water change two days before leaving meant only one thing.

Sure enough, after pulling the male and doing a massive water change change, I found the female behind the driftwood. I could not tell what killed her, as she was in a fungus cocoon which meant she must have died not long after I left. After doing an almost complete water change including salt at 1 teaspoon/5 gallons, I acclimated the male back to the tank and hoped for the best but usually once nitrate poisoning gets to the point where they are curled, they rarely came back.

The male hung on come Monday morning which was a surprised, and all day through actually able to right himself at times which is a good sign. His dorsal did have a wicked split all the way down to the base which he did not have prior to leaving. My only guess was that the pair had a wicked fight.

But sadly I awoke today to find he passed on. Given this species was always on my dream wish list, I'm more than a little upset about it.   

That sucks I myself have toyed with the idea of a planted dwarf cichlid tank. I was going to try that after I was sucessful with my planted puffer tank. Sorry for your loss. :/ Hopefully you can find some more dwarf cichlids and try it again. I lost a large amount of juvy angels when I left on vacation for a week to horrible gel vacation feeders. They caused fungus on all of them. Mouth, eye and fins. I will never use those gel vacation feeders again!

Wow. Never seen that with vacation feeders before, but glad I don't use them after hearing that.

And thanks.

I've nly found it with the gel ones. I use the hard shell ones with no problems. I just tried these because they seemed more natural. Gel disolves over time releasing food. However, clearly not the case!

 - That sucks...

Sorry to hear dwarfpike. So do you think they just got into a big fight and stressed each other to the point to die? How would the nitrates spike like that?!

My guess is, given the condition of the female, that she died either the day before I left or the day of. The nitrates were a bit higher than normal before the water change I did, though I did not test them after the water change. The only thing I can think of is the water change triggered a breeding fight (they would usually breed a day or two after a wc) in which the female lost.

Given the low temp and the new motor sound from the HOB, I asked roomies if we lost power during one of the windstorms and indeed we did for a little over 6 hours. So am guessing no filtration with the dead female is what spiked them.

Usually a spike in nitrates will not due this, now the dead body will cause a serious spike in nitrites, which is most likely the culprit.

Either way that really sucks. Hope that you are able to replace them. I so hate leaving on vacations, even just a 2 dayer. I will be in Reno in May for 5 days, I will be stressing the whole time. lol

Given the smell of the water, I figured it was going through a mini cycle hence the salt for nitrites to try and help lower the toxicity of it. I didn't test for ammonia or nitrite though, I was more worried about getting clean, fresh water into the tank for to try and save him.

I've left them alone for a week, a week and a half, and even two weeks before with no issues. They only time I had an issue before was when the pair formed and I wasn't home to rescue the other fish from the tank. Sadly, house sitting is my only income at the moment, so I can't pass on it. Also means I can't do much about replacements for now.

Sorry for your loss dwarfpike. I know how special these fish were to you and how hard you worked the keep the pair happy and healthy.

Thanks cichlid-gal, much appreciated.

PS: Never go to Cory's store when you have no money or tank space!

ShortyKiloGyrl wrote: I lost a large amount of juvy angels when I left on vacation for a week to horrible gel vacation feeders. They caused fungus on all of them. Mouth, eye and fins. I will never use those gel vacation feeders again!

I had the same thing happen! I lost all my adult mollies and all but one of the babies that were in the fry saver.

dwarfpike wrote:Given the smell of the water, I figured it was going through a mini cycle hence the salt for nitrites to try and help lower the toxicity of it. I didn't test for ammonia or nitrite though, I was more worried about getting clean, fresh water into the tank for to try and save him.

I've left them alone for a week, a week and a half, and even two weeks before with no issues. They only time I had an issue before was when the pair formed and I wasn't home to rescue the other fish from the tank. Sadly, house sitting is my only income at the moment, so I can't pass on it. Also means I can't do much about replacements for now.

House sitting eh? send me a p.m. and let me know your rates.