Nicaragua cichlid

Care at a glance

Overview

Keep them as a compatible male and female pair in a tank of 285 liters or larger, with another 180 liters or more on top of that if you want to mix in other cichlids. They are mostly peaceful for their size but stay territorial, especially when breeding, and they will eat any fish small enough to swallow, so this is not a community fish. They hold to the bottom, where they sift sand and dig. Run the water at 23 to 28 C, pH 7 to 8, and hard. They are sensitive to organic waste and nitrate, so do frequent partial water changes. Feed a varied diet of quality pellets, frozen foods, and some vegetable matter.

In the wild

Nicaragua cichlids come from the Atlantic slope of Central America, from Honduras and Nicaragua down into Costa Rica, including Lake Nicaragua and the San Juan drainage. They live over sand and rock where they sift the substrate for food. Give them a soft sandy bottom they can dig in, along with rockwork, driftwood, and caves, and stick to hardy attached plants like Anubias since loose plants get uprooted. Keep the water hard and on the neutral to alkaline side, around pH 7 to 8, at 23 to 28 C, in a tank of at least 285 liters.

Good to know

This is a large cichlid in the family Cichlidae, reaching about 25 cm, with males growing larger and developing a nuchal hump while females stay smaller. It is a substrate spawner with strong care from both parents. A pair excavates a pit and produces 200 to 400 eggs, and wild females will even pool their broods together for group defense. Adults can live well over a decade in good conditions.

Did you know

Wild females practice a behavior called creching, where several mothers herd their fry into a shared group and defend the whole pool together. A single female may end up guarding young that are not all her own, which spreads the risk of predation across the colony.

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