Demon eartheater

Care at a glance

Overview

Keep them in a group of five to eight, which settles into a gentle pecking order, in a tank of at least 450 liters. They are peaceful for their size and stay near the bottom, sifting sand for most of the day, and they will not eat any fish too large to swallow. Water should run 24 to 28 C, soft, and acidic to neutral at a pH of 5.5 to 7.5. Feed sinking foods like pellets, frozen bloodworms, and brine shrimp that settle onto the sand where they can find them. They mix well with other calm, similarly sized fish that share their water needs.

In the wild

Demon eartheaters come from the slow, sandy-bottomed rivers and flooded forest channels of the Amazon basin, where they spend their day combing the substrate for food. To match that, give them a soft, fine sand bed they can sift through, since they constantly take in mouthfuls of sand and pass it back out through the gills. Keep the water warm, from 24 to 28 C, soft, and slightly acidic at a pH of 5.5 to 7.5. Open swimming space over the sand matters more to them than heavy planting.

Good to know

This is a cichlid in the family Cichlidae, reaching about 18 cm as an adult. It is a maternal mouthbrooder, so the female holds and protects the eggs and fry in her mouth, and it breeds best with mature fish in stable water. Breeding difficulty is moderate, and a healthy adult can live several years in good conditions.

Did you know

The constant sand-sifting is not just a habit, it is how they eat. They take a mouthful of substrate, sort out the worms, insect larvae, and bits of food inside, then spit the cleaned sand back out. Watch a group work the bottom and you can see why a fine, soft sand bed is not optional for them.

Related species

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