Yellow-cheek dwarf cichlid

Care at a glance

Overview

The yellow-cheek dwarf cichlid is a soft-water apisto that spends its time near the bottom of a calm, shaded tank. It is best with a little experience.

Caring for the yellow-cheek dwarf cichlid

Keep a pair of yellow-cheek dwarf cichlids in 16 gal (60 L) of soft blackwater, with cover. Several females can share a larger tank if each one gets a cave. Give them sand, heavy leaf litter and tangles of twigs, with shade over the tank.

Hold the water at 77 to 84°F (25 to 29°C) and a pH of 5.0 to 6.5, with gentle flow. Feed live and frozen foods as the first choice.

This apisto is mostly peaceful but easily bullied, so avoid boisterous tank mates entirely. Breeding is standard cave spawning, made harder by its need for genuinely soft, acidic, warm water and patient conditioning.

Good to know

Meinken described Apistogramma gibbiceps in 1969. Males are marked by vertical bars on the lower tail and a zigzag lateral line. Breeding males show a humped nape, which gives the species its name. It has been in and out of the hobby for decades, but never in numbers.

In the wild

The yellow-cheek dwarf cichlid comes from blackwater streams of the middle Rio Negro and Rio Branco systems in Brazil. It lives along litter banks in warm, acidic water, and males patrol small territories between the leaf piles.

Common questions

Related species

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• 

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• 

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• 

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• 

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• 

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