My Introduction to the Triangle Cichlid

There are a few fish in the cichlid world that when you see them available, you feel the need to acquire them. This is certainly the case with Uaru amphicanthoides. When I first got into the hobby and started working at the local fish store, I started acquiring many new fish and tanks. I had decided that I wanted a large freshwater aquarium but hadn’t decided what I had wanted to place in it. I was thinking of perhaps doing a large Haplochromine tank or doing some large Central American cichlids like the true red terror, Amphilophus festae. One day we got in some very cool cichlids, Crenicichla sp. Xingu I, aka the Orange Pike Cichlid. These immediately caught my eye, bright orange color with black horizontal strips. I wanted these but wondered what I could use as tankmates. I ended up with a 150 gallon tank, 72”X18”X26”, so a very tall tank, making a nice display despite as much surface area as a 125 gallon tank. It was outfitted with a power filter, a dual sponge filter and a canister to ensure good water quality and two heaters to keep the temperature at 82 F or above.
 
Then a few weeks later we got in a batch of 4” fish that had a black blotch on their sides. I didn’t recognize these fish as I was just getting into South American fish but they looked very much like a severum. They were labeled as Uaru on the tank. I asked about these fish, looked them up on the web and discovered they got to be dinner plate size at 10-12” in size. These would be the perfect tankmate for my pike cichlids I thought. Well after a talk with my friend, Dan, he convinced me to give the Uaru the run of the 150 gallon tank I had setup.

I bought 4 large pieces of driftwood along with some river rock. The substrate consisted of white sand so the fish could easily sift through it for food. This is about as close to a natural setting as I could get I thought. Not the prettiest of tanks but it ended up working well.

While the tank was being setup the way I wanted it to be, the Uaru at work came down with a terrible case of ich. They were pulled and placed into isolation so they could be treated with some medication and given daily water changes. I was hopeful to get at least 8 individuals to work with in hopes of spawning them. After a few days of checking on them, they weren’t getting any better, they were getting worse. We had lost all but 7 individuals and I made the decision to take them home to try and save them at this point. While I would say taking any fish home with a severe case of ich is a terrible idea I wasn’t sure when I’d get the chance to get these fish again. Not only that, my tank was all of 2 weeks old, far from being a “cycled” aquarium.

Once the fish were home, I made sure that I bumped up the temperature to over 84 F and added half doses of nox-ich. It was up to time to see if they would make it. I didn’t have much hope. The next day I look into the tank expecting to see a few dead fish. I was surprised to see all alive and hanging on. The ich had reduced quite a bit but was still present on them. My hopes increased that they would do well. Within a week, the ich was totally gone and the fish were eating flakes and frozen foods for me.

Growing These Curious Beasts Out

After a few weeks, it was obvious these guys were very curious about everything in the aquarium. They would try to eat everything, taste first, think second. They ate all foods offered and I thought if they are doing this well, perhaps spawning them won’t be too difficult. With a little bit of reading, I found out Uaru amphiacanthoides spawn much like discus, laying their eggs on a flat and sometimes vertical surface. The fry hatch after 2 days and are placed into a spawning pit until the fry become freeswimming 3-4 days later. Once free-swimming, the fry feed off of the parents. However it is not a necessity for Uaru fry to be raised by the parents like discus, hence why Uaru were spawned before discus (Leibel 1997).

It took about a year before I started seeing some courting between my Uaru. In the meantime, the Uaru had been munching on various things in the tank including the driftwood, something they are known for and the sponge filters, something they are not known for. They had eaten the sponges down to nothing for a while. I hadn’t really noticed this activity until it was fairly obvious what had been happening. Thankfully they were able to pass the foam material but I ended up removing the remaining parts of the sponges just in case. Also within the year of growing them out, I had used a rubber band to hold down some cucumber I had intended to be for the Uaru. A few hours later I come back to find one of the Uaru’s with the rubberband stuck in his mouth. The only thing I can think of is that it looked like a worm to the fish. I quickly netted the fish out and grabbed rubberband out from its mouth.

I continued giving the Uaru lots of great food including frozen bloodworms, plankton, krill, algae wafers and various cichlid pellets. These guys can produce a lot of waste so to ensure water quality wasn’t an issue I provided water changes 3-4 times a week of about 20%. Filters were cleaned every few weeks as needed.

Breeding Uaru amphiacanthoides

A few months later, I come home from work to find a pair of Uaru in the right corner of the tank with a huge pit. It stretched 2 feet and took up a third of the tank. All the other fish were pushed to the other side of the tank, spawning was certainly on the pair’s mind. The next day, the pair went back to it but I could tell at this point that their spawning tubes were starting to drop. A few hours later, they probably started spawning but I didn’t witness the actual spawning.

I came back to find a plaque of eggs on the piece of driftwood in the middle of the spawning pit. I could count just over 100 eggs. A small spawn for such a large fish but I was happy to have a spawn from them. I watched all that night, seeing what I had worked the last few years to achieve. Both parents fanned the eggs with the male guarding the territory. I had hopes of seeing baby Uaru very soon.

The next day, I find the pair still guarding the territory but no eggs. Someone had eaten the eggs between the night before and the next morning. I was disappointed but hopefully they would spawn again sooner then later. A few weeks later and the pair were courting heavily. Each fish would flair their gills at each other and circle one another each time they saw one another. It was almost like to the two fish were in love, fun to watch for sure. Spawning took place in the same location and there were a plaque of eggs soon after both fish had dropped their tubes down. These were guarded even more heavily this time and no fish were allowed in the territory even during feeding.

Each day that passed, I was worried the eggs would disappear so I would wake up and walk over to the tank immediately and check on the eggs. The parents stayed over them, charging at me occasionally when I got too close. I could see the eggs developing as they were eyeing up at this point. Hatching was just hours away.

I happened to be home while the eggs were hatching as I came down to the tank and found the wigglers starting to hatch out. To my dismay, the parents were eating the fry as fast as they were hatching! I told myself to just leave the fry with the parents and they will spawn again and get it right the next time. Throughout the night the eggs all hatched and every single baby was eaten by the parents. This certainly was a sign of a young pair. Well about 6 months later, we had to move and I decided it too much stress to move the Uaru with us. So I parted with the fish hoping to return successful one day.

A Second Try

After a few years of keeping various other fish, Uaru amphiacanthoides were available from Jeff Rapps at TangledUpInCichlids.com. Jeff gets in a lot neat South American and Central American cichlids. I have acquired many neat fish through him including various Geophagus, Hypselecara among others. This time I got 8 F-1 Uaru at 2.5” in size. They were placed in the same tank as last time and grown out the same way. It was going to take another 1 ½ years to get them to breeding size.

Mid-2007, I started seeing courting out of my fish. Uaru do not exhibit sexual dimorphism (color differences between males and females) so it was difficult to see who was pairing up with whom. The particular pair that paired off didn’t make as large of a pit as my first pair had. The pit that was dug was barely one foot around. Spawning was on a small river rock. I had decided this time I was going to pull the eggs as the chances of the fry surviving were zero in a tank with the other Uaru, a group of eight Geophagus altifrons, three Scobiancistrus aureatus, a Panaque nigrolineatus and a Pseudacanthicus leopardus.

Into a 5 gallon the eggs went with a little methylene blue to prevent fungused eggs from ruining the entire spawn. After a few days, the eggs had eyed up and were close to hatching. The next day, all were wigglers. I had a successful spawn, now I just have to raise the fry up. After 3 days, the fry started to become freeswimming. I introduced baby brine shrimp as their first foods. This worked well as the fry had pink bellies indicating they had eaten the shrimp.

After a week, the fry had a very different color pattern from anything I had read about. The fry were black and white banded across their entire body. A very cool looking fish, if they could only stay like that. Eventually the fry were all transferred to a 45 gallon brute for further grow out where they eventually took on the spotted pattern the juveniles are so well known for. Having now spawned Uaru amphiacanthoides, the accomplishment was well worth all the time and effort put into it. Now if I can just afford the holy grail of Uaru, U. fernandezeyepezi or the Panda Uaru, my journey can continue with this Genus.