Mystery Cichlid

trixia · 07-17-2008, 02:12 AM

Hi there, i've got a 33 gal freshwater tank with a fire-belly convict, and a mystery cichlid. When we bought her the pet store said she was blue ram cichlid, but she looks like a green terror tho, and also maybe a blue acara cichlid...or ?? maybe something else?? If someone knows it would be greatly appreciated, she is a young fish still, and maybe thats why it's so hard to tell.

BlueAcaraGuy · 07-17-2008, 08:12 AM

Hey there. From that photo i'm tipping that you have got yourself a Blue Acara, i have four of them myself and that is exactly how they looked when i brought them home. I think the fish shop lady may have been inexperienced because after searching long and hard, in every article about blue rams that i could find, the accompaning pictures showed fish with quite alot of yellow amongst the blue, even the juvenile fish.

The reason i think it is a Blue Acara and not a Green Terror is just because of how similar it looks to my blue acaras. Also i think because of the flurescent spots on its mouth area.
One way to tell is that the Green Terrors get more of a pronounced bump on its head when they mature, obviously this will take some time, not sure if you wanna wait that long or not.

Im sure someone of a larger knowledge base will be able to give you a clearer diagnosis.

Anyway good luck and keep me posted

gregpape23 · 07-17-2008, 09:29 PM

I just got a Green Terror yesterday, and the second I saw that pic that was what I thought it was. I would say Green Terror, but I have never owned a blue acara, so i cannot say anything against that. Obviously Blue Acara guy seems to know what hes talking about. Lol But thats just my 2 cents

BlueAcaraGuy · 07-17-2008, 11:05 PM

Having never kept green terrors i can't be too sure if it isnt one.
I'm basing my opinion on what i know, what my blue acara's looked like when they were small, and this website that contains a photo of a juvenile green terror.
http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/cichlid/grenterror.php

trixia · 07-19-2008, 12:43 PM

OMG Thank you BlueAcaraGuy! That photo was good, she definitely doesn't look like those. She is very aggressive too, do blue acara get aggressive? (She tore up one of our zebra danios in the middle of the night, sometime last week) I'll probably be bugging you about their behavior next! LOL

BlueAcaraGuy · 07-20-2008, 03:03 AM

Blue Acara's have been known to get a little aggressive, like most cichlids they will have a go at anything small enough for them to eat. If the danios are bigger then Blue I'm not to sure as to what happened. My Blues live in a tank with black widow tetra, the tetra are to big for the Blue to eat so they generally leave them alone. Really Blue's are mostly fiesty to their own kind, which may pose a problem for those wishing to keep more than a pair in their tank, because once a male has established dominace, you can be sure any other males won't last too long.

Trixia don't be afaird to ask for help, trust me when i first started out i was on the phone to my brother every could of hours, and when i was doing that you can be sure that google was working harder then powerhead filter.

Keep me posted, as you can tell by my name i love these little (possibly not the best word as they can reach 8 inchs) guys.

trixia · 07-20-2008, 12:45 PM

Oh thank you, a bunch. She (i dunno if it's a she we just call her that cause her name is belle, my 4 year old named her), lives with some black widow tetras(4) as well as danios(3). She gets picked on a lot by our other cichlid, he's a male firebelly convict, but she is actually the ruffian. She also killed a black widow tetra that was small, but she does bite at the larger ones as well. She has even bitten the convict and he's larger than her too. We would like to get her a mate but don't know if she would kill another one or not, but your advice helps a lot.

Google gets a healthy dose of use too!! LOL
I have loved that lil' fishy since we brought her home. She even looks like a little ruffian. What do your Blue like to eat? So far i give her beef heart, blood worms and flakes. I would like to try minnows or something but i don't know when she's ready for that.

BlueAcaraGuy · 07-22-2008, 01:19 AM

With regards to getting a mate for her, all should be fine with respects to them coexisting. The only problem i forsee is if they both turn out to be males, in which case the more dominant one would most likely kill the other. But that said i would only see it as a problem if they are living in a tank which is too small for the too of them to exist in peacefully. Minimum tank would be around the 36 inch tank.

Now with regards to it attacking the other members of the tank.
They convict would only come under the eyes of the Blue because the convict is a central american cichlid and the blue acara is a south american cichlid. You have a 33 gallon tank, in which you have a firemouth, blue acara and a convict. Now the blue can grow to 8 inches, the convict up to 5-6 inches and the firemouth about 6.5 inches, thats 19.5-20.5 inches of fish which can get alittle testy at times. I would be thinking if there is a possibility of getting a separate tank for Blue Acara, that way you can get a mate for it without any fish loss, and also because the firemouth hails from central america too, so once that blue gets bigger it might just decide it doesn't like the foreign invader

orb4me · 07-22-2008, 04:16 PM

green terrors must be popular this month. I bought 2 last month. They are in a 55 gal with 5 parrot fish and one kissing gouramis. Every one gets along very well.

trixia · 07-22-2008, 04:18 PM

I have a correction tho, i must not be too clear, i don't have a firemouth, i have a firebelly convict('orange-belly faciatus' i never heard of them before we got it), and a blue acara. But just yesterday we got another firebelly convict. So now we are in the process tho of finding another 30 gal so we can get another blue. The convict has been hidding a lot all of a sudden too, and we found out it's cause it maybe has too much room, but since yesterday has been out chasing the new one. Sorry for any confusion i may have caused. LOL
We went to the lfs and they had more blue acara but they all had ick, i think orb was right...it is ick season!! LOL