Id?

[PCG]

I've never tried to upload a picture before, so I hope this works. I got this guy about two months ago. The picture is from when I first added him, and he's colored up a lot more since. I don't know what it is though...looks kind of like a firemouth, but different.

For about the first month after I added it, it got along fine with the blue acara of about the same size that I have. If anything, the acara seemed like the bossier fish. But this last month, this guy has turned the tables and has been an absolute terror. It's gotten progressively worse as time has gone on, and as of this week he has the acara, which is now bigger than he is, hiding behind one of the filter intakes for most of the day. And it's not just an occasional thing, or over territory...this fish now constantly hounds the acara no matter where it goes to escape.

If it's anything close to a firemouth, I figured it'd get along fine with a blue acara. I guess not, though. I'm probably going to return it this weekend.

Anyway, just curious what this fish really is, and if they're usually this aggressive. It looks great, but I can't have the acara living in constant fear, so this guy's gotta go.

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EDIT - I don't think that image upload worked...maybe I'll just put the link in the body of text here:

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[coolingeffect]

its a firemouth, and a nice looking one at that. How big is the tank? Ive known people who have had several firemouths and the agression reports are always more on the mellow side.

[thatcichlidguy]

It's a firemouth. They can be aggressively territorial and since you didn't mention the tank size, I'm gonna guess it's fairly small. Basicly he's just claimed the entire tank for himself. If you have them together in anything smaller than a 55 , your not gonna stop it short of rehoming one of them. If it is a 55 or larger, try incorporating sight breaks and building up the aquascape to have distinct areas with obvious borders. That can help some.

Just a quick note: the level of aggression can vary a good bit, depending on the individual specimen. That goes for most all cichlids. Also, the FM is a central american cichlid which tend to be generally more aggressive than their south american (your acara) relatives. Just food for thought for any future stocking plans.

[PCG]

Tank is 75g. It's the blue acara, the crazy firemouth, and a port acara that's a bit bigger (a shade over 4") and so he doesn't get bothered. I also have four clown loaches and four angelicus loaches. I'm moving soon and will be getting a 125g at that point for the sake of the clowns. They're about 3" now, but I know they'll eventually slowly get a lot bigger.

Don't know if space is the issue. Plenty of hiding spots too, as there's a pretty intricate rock/fake ornament cave complex on one end of the tank, a spiralis crypt forest in the middle, and a big piece of driftwood that can be hidden under at the other end. But the acara can go to the opposite side of the tank and hide in the rocks and it doesn't matter...the firemouth will just chase him through there, chase him out, to the other side, under the driftwood, and back again.

He does look great though. But I don't think it's going to work in my setup.

[KingFisher]

Looks more like Eliotti to me, but they are so similar it's hard to tell at that size. Either way, their care is identical and they are both very nice fish. Good luck with her.

[thatcichlidguy]

I'd still try thr aquascaping trick before giving up. The big trick with that is to make sure that the layout looks completely different than it did before. That and try adding some tall plants ,and enough of them, to give a sight break. Cichlids tend to be very "out of sight , out of mind" creatures. Give the acara somewhere to duck out of sight and it should end the chase right there. I've done this several times when adding new cichlids to existing setups and it works pretty well.