# Australoheros red ceibal breeding :)



## CHK

About 2 months ago I found that my LFS carried some gymnos and australoheros. I strongly suspect they are from the Spencer Jack collection. Anyhow, as I have luck before breeding another species of the australoheros I decided to get some "red ceibal"s to try out. There were only 3 left in the tank when I found them, so I took the gamble and bought the largest and smallest of the three.

So you can imagine my glee when after 2 months, they managed to pair up and I found my gymnos chased to the corners of the tank.  I took the gymnos out and gave the tank to the pair and eggs followed. They are still on the small side, about 2 inches. Here are some pics:





































I find the "red ceibal"s very distinct from the australoheros "oblongum"s that I already have. As the name implies, the "red ceibal"'s base colour is a burnt olive orange, while the "oblongum"s have a more yellowish base colour but the presence of spangles give the fish a bluish hue. I want to see if I can keep the 2 species together - the display would look really nice.  Also, the eyes of the oblongums seem to be proportionately larger. For reference, this was the picture of my breeding female "oblongum".










Thanks for looking!

CHK


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## Dutch Dude

CHK,...realy gorgeous fish :thumb: They are true stunning fish in their breeding colors and congrats on the spawn :thumb: Seems like quit a challenge to give them the cool period in your part of the world isn't it? Keep on the good work and nice to see the Uruguayan fish increase in popularity :thumb:

Ruurd


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## madzarembski

They are gorgeous fish. Having just restarted fish keeping this last year after a long hiatus, I don't recognize them. Did they have a diferent name in the 80's & 90's? Can you share anything about them regarding care? I take is they need a cool season? Tanks size? Just Stunning
madzarembski


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## nothing else matter

very very nice. :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:


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## Howler33

Nice pics CHK. What size tank is that and how did the Gymnos get on with the Australoheros? I have always thought the Australoheros would be too aggresive for Gymnogeos in anything smaller than a 6' tank.


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## CHK

Thanks for your comments guys!

Ruurd: Also want to add that your comments in the past have helped me understand how to better keep these fish and contributed to the successful spawn :thumb: Yes, I think there has a surge in Uruguayan cichlids too, no doubt to their recent availability. I am still working on the "cool period". Frankly, I think it will be until I eventually move out of this apartment that I can satisfy myself and the fish fully on this point. :?

mazdarembski: A friend of mine who runs an LFS and has 40yrs of fish under his belt told me that these fish were loosely called chanchitos in the past. It seems they enjoyed popularity up to the 1940s or 50s. After that, due to lack of imports from the region, they were "lost" to the hobby so to speak. He showed me his fish books from the 1950s and the chanchito was represented. I believe in the 80s and 90s they may be found under "Cichlasoma" facetum or even Herichthys facetum as I found in an Axelrod atlas at Borders a month ago... As to their upkeep, I refer to these excellent articles by Wayne Leibel:
http://www.fishchannel.com/freshwater-a ... chito.aspx
and Claudia Dickenson:
http://www.cichlidae.com/article.php?id=371
From what I gathered, the Uruguayn cichlids will do well with 2-3 months at perhaps 50F or so. I am not able to go that low at this time. They are in a 20H, and at 2 inches, suits them just fine but the eventual goal is to move them into the 55 once I get the juvie growouts out of there 

Howler33: I do not know the compatability of australoheros and gymnos as these are still very young adults.... I have been told it wouldnt work. I may still try, keeping a careful eye but keeping a spare tank should I see anything wrong.

I am sure there many more hobbyists with their own australoheros. Feel free to post your pics too :thumb: . Looking forward to your pics! opcorn:

CHK


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## edburress

Very nice CHK! The breeding colors are very nice, defninitely the nicest Australoheros species IMO. Good luck and keep updating with details and pictures :thumb:

Ed


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## SinisterKisses

OMG...I think I NEED some of those fish! Absolutely STUNNING.


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## skwestle

I got 11 Red Ceibals from Spencer Jack Two months at 1" now they are 2" I have two pairs and about 20 fry swimming around. I really like the color on them.

Alaina would you like some?

Heres a pic


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## skwestle

[No message]


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## SinisterKisses

OMG Yes, yes I would!


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## CHK

skwestle said:


> I got 11 Red Ceibals from Spencer Jack Two months at 1" now they are 2" I have two pairs and about 20 fry swimming around. I really like the color on them.
> 
> Alaina would you like some?
> 
> Heres a pic


Congrats on your spawn! :thumb:


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## Vincent

Congratulations!

I still have the 'oblongum' fry I got from you several months ago and they're doing well.


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## CHK

Vincent said:


> Congratulations!
> 
> I still have the 'oblongum' fry I got from you several months ago and they're doing well.


Thats great! Thanks for the update :thumb: My juvies from the same batch are beginning to pair up. I see the breeding tube drop already but no clutches probably because there are too many of them :roll: - have to thin them out first.


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## toddnbecka

What's the current situation with the red c's? Did the pair continue spawning after the first brood? Will you have any juvies available?
I recently moved my spawning pair of oblongum to a 55 to allow some of their last brood and some BN fry to grow out. Soon after they were moved I saw a huge increase in the ramshorn population. BN fry too for that matter, I now have well over 150 instead of just 1. As soon as I get the current fry moved into another tank for growout I'll likely return the oblongum pair to the tank for population control. 
I did find 3 fry each from their 2 previous spawns that had managed to survive on their own. They are excellent parents up to a point, then their protective instinct seems to fade away. It does appear to last longer with each successive spawn. They're both still in breeding dress, weeks after being moved to a different tank.


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## CHK

Good job on the oblongums :thumb: Post pics when you can. I am not aware they eat ramshorn, as I keep MTS, but I will not be surprised that they do. Their feeding habits as I see it tend towards opportunistic; they will nip at anything new and interesting. They tend to the fry up to the point where they want to prepare for the next brood (4-6 weeks) or when the pair starts to squabble - then the remaining fry in the tank disappear real fast. If I want to keep the brood, I usually remove at the one week mark post free swimming.

Yeah the Red Ceibals are spawning about every other month but I only have the space to keep the first brood. They are maybe half inch now? Will let you know once I get them to good size for inspection (no deformities etc etc)


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## toddnbecka

I noticed the oblongum fry seem to be somewhat slow-growing as well. The largest are about the size of my thumbnail, maybe 7/8" length. Even the 1/2" fry show the stripes quite distinctly, and look remarkably like severum fry. The BN pleco fry grow much faster than they do. They'll be moved to the 75 for growout in a few more days. I want it up and running for 2 weeks to become well-enough established before moving fry in. It's been 1.5 weeks now, with a couple dozen rosy reds from the backyard pond to help the seeded tank along.


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## CHK

Be sure to look out for the 2 yellow spots at the base of the tail fin when they are about 1cm long and will disappear when they grow larger towards an inch. These spots are reported by literature to be specific to the genus (Australoheros). Both my red ceibal and oblongum fry have them 8)


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## toddnbecka

I looked, but can't see any yellow spots. It might be the lighting in the tank. The floating Najas has grown so thick that very little light gets through to the front or bottom. All I noticed was the typical black spot on the side and another at the base of the tail. The largest fry is starting to show some dark pigment on the rays of his (assuming largest is likely a male?) tail fin. He did show for a few moments with the pattern subdued, and I saw some blue color shining along his side. Then he moved a little deeper into the tank and the dark pattern became prominent again. It's the same pattern as the adults in breeding dress, but w/out the colorful background or blue spangles. The 6 larger fry were kept together in a net breeder for aout 6-7 weeks, then recently released back into the tank. They aren't a bit shy about coming to the front glass, and seem to prefer to keep within sight of one another. The funny thing is, when they were crowded together the larger one/s would occaisonally chase the smaller fish. It was packed with Najas, so they had plenty of cover/escape opportunity. The younger fry from the last brood tend to act more like the pleco fry. They don't associate me with feeding time, and sort of meander around doing their own thing. I'll get some pics after I thin out the Najas a bit.


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## CHK

The spots fade when they grow larger than half an inch. I once posted this picture of the fry. :wink:


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## SimonHo

Is it a Aggressive fish?
I can't check it on profile! Thx


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## toddnbecka

TFH magazine has an article on them in the new (July) issue. IME the oblongum aren't aggressive aside from being territorial when spawning.


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## CHK

SimonHo said:


> Is it a Aggressive fish?
> I can't check it on profile! Thx


From my experience (but only from 2 species), they are not aggressive. I have kept them with Kribs and black skirt tetras before and it was fine.


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## dwarfpike

Did the kribs breed? How did they hold up against them? Due to space restraints I've had to mix westies and SA before.


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## CHK

Well..... in a tank full of cichlids, breeding is going to be a challenge. I was raising my batch of krib fry. When I ran out of tanks, I unloaded them all to the LFS. There is never enough tank space


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## dwarfpike

Sometimes yeah, but then sometimes cichlids just find a way. Not a lot of SA dwarves can handle a breeding set of kribs, so was curious how assertive your oblongum were.


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## MonteSS

I got 7 A. oblongum from CHK a couple months ago. All arrived in great shape and are doin well now. I have them in a 3 foot tank. No pairing off yet. They still get along real well together. The largest is about 3". I am very happy with the fish, and they are coloring up nicely.

Their color changing ability is remarkable.

Here is the lighter coloration of the dominant male









And the same fish seconds later.









...Bill


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## toddnbecka

Here's my breeding pair, they've shown these colors ever since they stared spawning. Even several months after being moved to another tank they still look the same:









Better shot of the female:


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## MonteSS

BTW CHK, what camera are you using. Great shots.

....Bill


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## toddnbecka

Here's a couple pics of the 75 growout tank, now housing 116 BN and 18 oblongum fry:


















The oblongum fry remind me of Malawi peacocks. They cruise along just above the substrate looking for anything edible. However, they don't grab a mouthful of sand like the Hap's. Their hunting seeems to be focused on the surface of the sand rather than on anything deeper.


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## DeadFishFloating

> Their hunting seeems to be focused on the surface of the sand rather than on anything deeper.


It's quite possible that they are hunting for insect lava and small crustacians.


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## CHK

MonteSS said:


> BTW CHK, what camera are you using. Great shots.
> 
> ....Bill


Thanks! This is done with my 5 yr old Canon A80. Its not a professional camera by any standards, but does offer some features for amateurs. So what I did is to set up the camera with a fixed focal length somewhere in the tank, with it zoomed in, set to night mode... and wait. When the fish I want pass the exact spot, I take a a quick snap. So perhaps I get to keep about 1-2% of the pictures I take.... :roll:


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## MonteSS

Do we know hoe big these guys and gals get?

...Bill


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## CHK

From what I have gathered from other posts and forums, the Red Ceibals may get as large as 7-10 inches? I have not bred them to full size so cannot say. Right now the male is about 3 inches.

As for the oblongums, my 3 yr old male stopped growing at 5+ inches. The female is about an inch smaller.


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## MonteSS

Interesting....

http://www.aqvaterra.com/

....Bill


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## toddnbecka

> From what I have gathered from other posts and forums, the Red Ceibals may get as large as 7-10 inches?


I'm wondering whether that's actual experience from folks keeping/raising them in aquariums, or just something they've read being passed along. 
It's possible that the oblongums grow larger in the wild, or maybe there's another subspecies that grows larger? Personally I like the smaller size. I never was a fan of huge cichlids that trash anything else in the tank.


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## dwarfpike

'oblongum' are supposed to be the smallest of the genus, facetus are supposed to get larger in the aquarium than in nature.


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## toddnbecka

Oh geez, I just realized I was confusing oblongum with facetus. That explains why the pic in the July issue of TFH magazine shows more blue in the fins... What gets me though, the pattern of stripes is the same among at least 3 different species.


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## MonteSS

From what I have been reading from collectors who go to Uraguy, in the wild, the Reds max out at 16 cm (about 6.25")

....Bill


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## CHK

toddnbecka said:


> Oh geez, I just realized I was confusing oblongum with facetus. That explains why the pic in the July issue of TFH magazine shows more blue in the fins... What gets me though, the pattern of stripes is the same among at least 3 different species.


From the published literature that I have been browsing, the A. facetus, while a distinct described species, also represents a sub-group of the Australoheros genus. I believe that the "oblongum" resides in this sub-group, although I have not done any rigorous study (scale/fin counts etc) but just did a basic comparison based on the available pictures. While the facetus can get large, the "oblongum"s tend to stay small, IME.

More information here:
http://www.cichlidae.com/gallery.php?ge ... traloheros

The barring is probably going to be consistent across the genus, now at 18 described species and counting... I will keep a lookout for the July issue of TFH - really wanna see their pic of the facetus


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## toddnbecka

Sign up for a free trial here:
http://www.qfie.com/tfh/clstfhreg1.asp? ... stcode=FTD


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## CHK

I did.... I got one free February issue... :x


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## toddnbecka

I had to strip down the 55 the obongum pair is currently housed in to net out another fish. About an hour later I was putting the rocks back into the tank and noticed something on the front of one... chanchito eggs. No chance of putting things back the way they had been at that point. I felt so bad after I got the tank back together, and the female was cruising back-and-forth in front of the spot where the rock/eggs had been. Chances of any of the spawn surviving long in the 55 would have been minimal, but at least the parents would have had their shot.


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## MonteSS

Well im sure they will go at it again Todd. My Oblongum show no signs of pairing. My dominant one I assume is male is a good 3 1/2". The other six range from 2-3".

Any way to sex them at this size?

Too many in the 3' tank? Aggression is not bad at all

I have plastic plants. Do I need real?

There is also a 3 1/2"+ Archocentrus Centrarchus in the tank. She is boss of the tank but pretty mellow.

46G tank pic. I had caves but they showed no interest at all.









....Bill


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## toddnbecka

I know they'll spawn again, just hated to see the eggs wasted like that. You'll know it when a pair forms, their colors become more intense. I had mine in a 30 long for growout, and had to move out 3 because they were getting harassed. Even hiding didn't help, one still got her tail fin shredded because it stuck out of the cave she hid in. They weren't so bad with 2 pairs in the tank, though only one pair spawned while the male kept the other two confined to the other opposite corner. 
The female didn't spawn in a cave, she actually deposited the eggs on the face of a rectangular piece of shale right out in the front of the tank. There are 2 AC 500's running the UG filter plates on that 55, so there's quite a lot of flow/circulation. 
In the 30 I have loads of floating Najas. When the eggs hatch the female hangs the clump of adhesive wigglers on the plants, then moves them around among the plants until they're free-swimming. Both parents "scape" the Najas, keeping a clear area where they want one while they're tending the fry.


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