festaes

[BHead707]

Could someone let me know the care requirements of an Ecuadorian festae?

thanks,
Brandon

 

[HUKIT]

They are no different than most other new world cichlids when it comes to diet and water conditions, but were they do differ is aggression. I started out with 9 F3's around 1" alone in a 180g and by 2-3" they killed off 6 fish, 2 females and 1 male were left. Now I have 6 more F1's with my largest being a female around 5" and she is insane, she's killed over 40 fish total. I've tried target fish, dithers, and even large clown loaches and she's killed them all. I now have most of them seperated leaving 2 females and 2 males together from different lines waiting for a eggs, I know they are close since both pairs have the tank basically in half. Then after a verified the spawn the 2 will be spilt again into seperate tanks with dividers.

They are extremely slow growers that will average 0.5" per month. Diet consist of New Life Spectrum Thera pellets in 2&3mm. Water conditions are very straight forward, nitrates never above 10ppm with large weekly water changes. Once you get past their aggression and the female starts to show color there are no freshwater fish that comes close to her beauty IMO. I have a few pictures of them in one of my gallery's.