# New Geophagus



## edburress (Jun 9, 2007)

I just got some F0 Geophagus abalios and F0 Geophagus taeniopareius, both from the Rio Orinoco.

I got 7 Geophagus abalios, they range from 6-8cm TL. They are really beautiful but it does not show well in the pictures because their base color is silver and there is too much glare off the glass and sand to really show the amount of iridescent blues and greens but you can see it some on the shoulder. 









and 8 Geophagus taeniopareius, they range from 5-6cm TL, they have a good amount of yellow in their fins but the yellow striped on their side are just barely visible. I really like their infraorbital stripe. A few of them look a little rough, so I think they were hard on each other in the bag during shipment. 









both together in quarantine









I really hope to have female heavy groups, I believe I have identified one male G. abalios just based on caudal extensions developing but they are too young to tell, and I think the G. taeniopareius really are truly monomorphic so I have no clue on them. They are substrate brooders so I think that will be really interesting to observe when they breed.

Their quarantine tank is 36" and I only plan to leave them in there until they are accepting all of my foods readily. Here the quarantine tank before they were in...








They've already dug up the anubias and java fern so I will probably just go ahead and take them out. Parameters: pH 7, gH 3, kH 2, 83*

Their growout tank will a 100g Rubbermaid tub. I am still setting it up, it is in my basement and I have mounted a T5 light on the back. I am going to use just a small amount of play sand on the bottom and hopefully that will make it light enough because the bulb is only 8w. All of the filtration is mature on another tank I just have to move everything over when it is time. I have never setup a tub for cichlids but I plan to have 3-4 of them, so I am using this one as an experiment. 









Long term their tank will be a 270g (8') which I was initially planning for my Geophagus "tapajos orange head" but now I plan on making it a Rio Orinoco biotope. I'll update as the fish get settled in and as the tub comes together.

Comments, questions, suggestions all welcome!

Ed


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## rsretep (Apr 12, 2007)

hey ed good looking geos bro...i currently have four suranemisis and also three balzanni....am currently changing residences and have set up a fish room(a life time dream for me)so the balzanni (one male two female) now have their own tank and the festivities have already begun...hope to see some eggs soon....anyway ed good luck with your new additions pete


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## edburress (Jun 9, 2007)

rsretep... thanks for the kind words. I like the species you keep as well, good luck!


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## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

Sweet pickup!! I love _Geophagus taeniopareius_, their smaller size and bandit stripe are excellent. I think they are my second fav _Geophagus_ type behind orangeheads. Don't forget to find some colombian wallacii dwarf pikes or orinico dwarves and _Laetacara_ 'orangeflossen' to put in there!!! :thumb: :lol:


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## blairo1 (May 7, 2006)

Very nice Ed,

Good find and a nice group by the looks of things! Geophagus taeniopareius are one of my favourites and I think they're seriously cool fish. Fingers crossed on the m/f mix! 8ft Rio Orinoco biotope eh..... I look forward to seeing this one develop, I'm with dwarfpike, tthere's got to be some _Crenicichla_ in there!


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## Dutch Dude (Sep 14, 2006)

Great fish Ed and I can't wait to see them grow out to even more beautiful adults!!! :thumb:

Good to see something diferent and you definitely got some rare fish! I also like the look of your Q-tank. Doesn't look like it and at first I thought Blair posted a pic in between, hahaha! A very nice set up Ed.

So plans are a Orinoco biotope! So we will have something in common becouse my Guianacara tank is also a Orinoco biotope. In stead of the pikes mentioned by Dwarfpike you could go with apisto's. Some beautiful species are from that aria like A. hoignei, A. hongsloy and A guttata. Also Rams come from that aria. Some real nice tetras as well like the head and tail light (H. ocilliver) and Oto's as well. You can find great clips on Youtube abouth the habitats of Venezuela. The guy's labeled them as "fish from Venezuela". Plants that occur there are Eichornia Azurea (realy nice specie!) and Cabomba.

I hope you keep us posted abouth the tank! I look forward to it :thumb:


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## edburress (Jun 9, 2007)

*dwarfpike*... Thanks! I'll look into those species, I don't know much about the Laetacara but I know slightly more about the crenicichla. Those species will probably be hard to find but I suppose that makes them more desirable :lol:

*blairo1*... Thanks! I am interested in some crenicichla. Initially, I wanted to do a Rio Tapajos biotope and wanted to include C. regani but the availability of these Geos changed the direction I wanted to go :lol: I'll try and get you and dwarfpike some good pics of the taeniopareius, they are terribly afraid of the light on my camera so it might be a few days.

*Dutch Dude*... Thanks Ruurd! The first time I saw a pic of Blairs quarantine tank I was amazed and decided they could look nice too :lol: I am definitely considering some Guianacara. I know the Rio Caroni is a tributary to the Orinoco, so I might look for Guianacara sp. "rio caroni". Different species show up in the states every now and then but it might take some time to find a particular species. H. ocellifer is the tetra I plan to use, do yours shoal well? Do you think they are large enough to not get eaten by the Geos? I do like the Apistos but I think I want to stick to more of an eartheater theme, so either Guianacara, G. dicrozoster or G. winemilleri. But I have never seen those two Geophagus, and have rarely seen them available in the states so they may be difficult to find, but I do have some time to find the species I want.

I am moving at the end of the year, so I won't have the big tank until then, so I am glad I could get some juveniles to grow out until then. I did do some work on the tub today, added some water and play sand. The suchion cups for the heater and sponge filters won't stick to the plastic so I mounted two stripes of acrylic down into the water to use to mount them to. Some pics...
















The water is clearing up and the temperature is 81 so I hopefully I can get it stable at 83 by tomorrow and start moving over some filtration and driftwood.

The Geos are doing well, they eat some small wafers I have but I want to get them accepting several different kinds of food before I move them into the tub. They have actually eaten away 2cm of the roots off of the two anubias they dug up! I don't know for sure but I believe it is the abalios, but maybe both. So I assume they will like zucchini so I will try that tonight.

The taeniopareius show some conspecific aggression so I want to get them moved into the tub soon so they have more room. I read that they were more aggressive than is typical for geophagus but wasn't expecting that to be so at 5cm :lol:


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## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

The orinico dwarves I've only seen on one list, and that only once. But the orinico collecting season is starting now, so we might seem them again this year. Very pretty, females look like noto's with massive red in the dorsal fins.

The Colombian wallacii I've seen several places, they are found in both the Orinico and Atabapo rivers, so the new collections from the Atabapo has been spreading them rather well.

Remember, apistos are more geophagus than guianacara are!! At least they are in the same family!! :lol:

Orangeflossen Laetacara are probably the prettiest. Dwarf acaras are great pickups. Besides, Deadfishfloating and I need more people in the Laetacara club!! :wink:


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## scatz (Jul 19, 2008)

Great looking youngsters you got, nice pick up


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## Dutch Dude (Sep 14, 2006)

Ed the Guianacara Rio Caroni are the more "common" once.

The H. ocilliver do school but a bit different to most tetras. Mine often are in a group spending time in one aria and slowly move across the tank. Some fish leave the group to investigate the surrounding. So they school but don't swim constantly from side to side like rummy nose do. Aren't rummy nose from the Orinoco delta as well? I find the H ocillifer a wonderful specie and they are much hardier as most tetras. The Guianacara don't show much interest in them. The ocillifer even steal their bloodworms :wink: Now that they are grown to adults they hardly fit the mouth of the Guianacara's. Mine are realy fat,...maybe to fat but they jump on every food I put in the tank. They even carry around algea tabs. Funny fish especially during feeding time (they think they are piranhas).

Did you also thought of Messonauta and Biotodoma Wavrini? To be honest.......2 pairs of apisto's would be great! I know my A hoignei do fine with the Guianacara.



> Remember, apistos are more geophagus than guianacara are!! At least they are in the same family!!


 :thumb: :lol:


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## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

Rummynose are from the Orinico drainage. :thumb:

My Rio Atabapo tank is going to have the rummynose, _Biotodoma wavrini_, and my colombian wallacii pikes in it. Though if I can ever find _Laetacara_ 'orangeflossen' ... :drooling:

So I can't believe I forgot to mention the _Biotodoma_ in my earlier post!


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## edburress (Jun 9, 2007)

Looks like I have a lot of choices :lol: I do like the Biotodoma. They are really similar looking to the taeniopareius though, by morphology and markings, so maybe I would prefer something less similar. I'll have to see what becomes available and go from there I suppose.

I think Rummynose would eventually be an expensive snack for the abalios! The abalios juvies actually shoal pretty well right now! They will swim in a line from one side of the tank to the other much like tetra.

I told my G. "tapajos orange head" that if they didn't lay eggs again soon they would be relegated to the tub and these new guys would get their tank :lol: they must not of liked that because they are laying right now.

*dwarfpike*... are the wallaci available sometimes in the states or no?

*scatz*... Thanks for the kind words!


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## dwarfpike (Jan 22, 2008)

Oh yes, well the colombian wallacii ... there is some debate if they are the real wallacii (which are from the far side of Guayana, not the Orinico side) or a new closely related species. I got my 4 at the LFS here, the big time wholesaler in portland has them, Cichlid Exchange.

Also saw them on a website list back east as well, though they are currently out: http://frybabies.com. Could always email them and see if more are coming in or ask some of the LFS if they would do an order from Cichlid Exchange.

They look a bit like noto's, but the females have orange ringed occelli in the dorsal instead of red.


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## edburress (Jun 9, 2007)

Slightly off topic post, but here is a video of a pair of my G. "tapajos orange head", both the male and female are holding, I tried to shoot it to where it was easy to tell. The eggs were laid on a vertical surface on the back of the piece of driftwood to the left of their cave.
http://s191.photobucket.com/albums/z3/e ... V03000.flv

Here is the female holding









And this male kept swimming in the way (he really likes the camera).


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## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

Very nice pickup Ed.

Like the look of the new tank to.  Might have to look at one of those when I move.


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## edburress (Jun 9, 2007)

Thanks Peter! Yeah the tub is a nice temporary home. I'd love to start the big tank now but I don't want to have to take it down just as it is getting nice and mature.

Just a quick update, I got the heater and a sponge filter in the tank, a light layer of play sand, and a few pieces of driftwood. I wasn't planning to use any plants but I decided to try two anubias and two small java fern, mainly because I already had them. There is not much light but hopefully they will do okay.








I usually take decent pictures but I am stuggling to get good ones of the _G. abalios_ and _G. taeniopareius_ because of glare in the QT tank, but here are some new ones anyway...

_G. abalios_








In this one you can see the tail pattern, which is really interesting. Most of the fish are like this one, where the central stripes are intact while the outer stripes are broken a few times and appear like spots. Two of them have "true" striped tails, and two also have tails that have entirely broken stripes and resemble a tail like _G. dicrozoster _or _G. altifrons_. I will be interested to see if they change as they mature. 








_G. taeniopareius_ - Their damaged fins are healing up, only a few still look rough. 








These guys are so active I can't get even a decent picture, but you can still see the nice yellows and blues. 








They are all settling in fine, and eating well too. They've started eating shrimp pellets, vegi flakes, blanched zucchini and crushed algae wafers. Only one of the G. abalios still hasn't fed, I may have to separate it out by himself so he doesn't have to compete with the others. If he doesn't eat tonight I will probably do so tomorrow because his stomach is visibly sunken but otherwise looks fine.

I'll post more updates,

Ed


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## blairo1 (May 7, 2006)

:thumb: Your last pic shows why I love _taeniopareius_, I can't wait to see those colours start 
to really pop out, so subtly intense it's awesome. They really are nice specimens. I've always 
been tempted to set up a big tub like that but I just love seeing fish from side on - they look a lot 
more "real" (if you know what I mean) when viewed from above, but I just love being able to look 
into the slice of their world. Is this tub something you'll use permanently (obviously it's a grow out 
for these guys) for other fish?


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## edburress (Jun 9, 2007)

Hey Blair, Thanks! I am not sure if I will keep the tub setup long term. My initial plan was to (after I move) set up a fishroom and upgrade to large tanks, and use the tubs to hold all my fish while that process is in the works (because they are easy to move around). I am going to set up the 270 first (for these Geos) then hopefully upgrade my other tanks to 6 footers. But that last part might take a long time to become reality! I've been wanting a large biotope tank for a long time, and then if I get the others setup they'll be species tanks (probably for more Geos).

The Geos are in! Except for the small _G. abalios_ that isn't eating. I put him with my bolivians, hopefully they'll show him how to eat pellets without being as energetic and intimidating as the other Geos. Here is the (mostly) finished tub...


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## edburress (Jun 9, 2007)

Took a quick video of them feeding...
http://s191.photobucket.com/albums/z3/e ... V03189.flv


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## bernreuther (Jan 29, 2007)

Haha, I already felt like I was copying you by setting up a tank for a bunch of orangeheads, now I really am - I just inquired about 8 3" abalios today! The guy who was going to sell me all those orange heads seems to have disappeared so I need a backup plan.

I'm not able to segregate them all into their own biotopes just yet though (was just going to have them all together) so you've got me beat there... but it's kind of funny to see you picking up some of these, especially after all the questions I've had for you about the orange heads.

Shame they're in the tub though... not as many opportunities to pose for your excellent photos.


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## blairo1 (May 7, 2006)

:thumb:

Fantastic fish, I love that darting energy, so inquisitive but cautiously so.



> Shame they're in the tub though... not as many opportunities to pose for your excellent photos.


I wouldn't worry about it too much, it won't be long and we'll be able to scrutinize them in Eds biotope .


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## edburress (Jun 9, 2007)

Thanks Blair!

Dave...Nice to hear you also acquired some _G. abalios_, I am glad I'll have someone to compare experiences with! They are about the same size as mine.

Half of my _G. taeniopareius_ have Ich so I am having to deal with that. I drained 25% of the water from the tub and trying to get the temperature up to 86*. I've already got their original quarantine tank up to 86* just in case I have to pull them out. I figure they had it when I got them but it didn't develop in QT because the temp was 84, but then when I moved them into the tub which was only 82 it began to visibly develop. I know my G. "tapajos orange head" can deal with 88* for ten days, so I am going to try the temperature remedy with these guys. I really prefer not to have to use meds.


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## bernreuther (Jan 29, 2007)

I don't have them yet - just found some for sale and inquired. Haven't gotten a reply yet.

I actually have my current tank temp at 87 because I was worried that a tetra had ich about a week ago. I think the orange heads prefer that temperature. The male has really been going after the female lately and they haven't tried breeding in months, but they are finally starting to act like it's business time again for the first time since my parasite scare. I am going to be really bummed if I can't add the other bunch to them to have a nice shoal. But the abalios will be a good alternative/compliment either way.

Oh, forgot to ask - what is blanching (for the zucchini)? I'd like to try to introduce that to my guys' diet. And I have a distichodus in another tank that needs some veggie matter. I just put some small cubes in with the other food in the geo tank and they have pecked at it but spit it back out, they don't seem interested.


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## edburress (Jun 9, 2007)

Hey Dave,

Yes the _G. abalios_ would be a nice compliment to the orange heads! Varied size and color that I think would look good together.

Yeah the Geos will be frisky in the 87*, most of my spawns have been in the 83-84* range but they certainly do a lot of displaying at even higher temperatures.

To fix the zucchini you can take a regular zucchini (mine actually do not like the organic ones :lol: ) and cut it into 1/4" discs, boil those for 2 minutes then dip them in cold water for about 20-30 seconds. Then I dry them off with a paper towel and trim the skin off from around the edges and simply chop the remainder into bite sized cubes (Ruurd is who told me how to prepare it, thanks Ruurd!). My orange heads ate it greedily the first time, as have the _taeniopareius_ and _abalios_. I feed it to them twice per week. Another alternative that I also feed are vegi flakes. Any of the quality brands for rift lake cichlids are fine, look for ones that contain kelp and spirulina. They'll take them from the surface after a few days but might not accept them first try. Both those foods will also be great for your _Satanoperca_, which should actually accept the vegi flakes first time.

Ed


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## bernreuther (Jan 29, 2007)

Ah, boiling. I just did as you described after that - cut into discs then chopped, and I soaked them in tank water for a while like I might with krill. I'll boil next time. (the distichodus, incidentally, loved it as it was, crispy and with skin. And in the coolest twist, my silver datnoid ate two peas - he has always been super picky and only eats krill or feeders!) I have the tetra veggie flakes that I feed to my mbuna, and the geos get that occasionally for variety. They love it. But I like this zucchini feeding, it's more interesting to watch them get to eat something besides flake.


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## spxsk (Mar 29, 2006)

My Orange Heads are currently at 86 and they are spawning like crazy. They are working out the kinks of being parents and realizing that yes, all those babies in your mouth is tough, but yes, the other fish will eat them if you do not pay attention. Ha! I cannot wait to see your 270 set up Ed. Mine is rolling now, you are going to love it.


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