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I was in a lfs today and the head of the fish department showed me these nice little cichlids and I was wondering if anyone knew much more about them. I tried looking up some info on them online but couldn't come up with much. So basically I'm asking, would they work in this tank?

3 ft. long 38 gallon aquarium
5 platies
5 black neons
4 corydoras arcuatus
1 keyhole cichlid

I plan on increasing the cories to at least 6 by either breeding mine or just waiting until I can find a couple more of them.

They should fit in fine with your other fish and in the tank. I've not kept them (my Laetacara experience is limited to curviceps and dorsigera), but I'd snap them up in a minute if I had the tank space.

Treat them like any Laetacara from what I've read, they're part of the larger Laetacara group and grow to about 4".

Eric

They are quite shy with other fish, certainly not an aggression problem except perhaps with their own species. Go for a compatible pair or a single specimen. I had one a few years back, I was rather fond of it. It just used to pootle around doing its own thing in community.

One note of caution though, their resistance to fungus is nil when subjected to nitrates much over 30ppm, so as long as you keep a sparkly tank with low nitrates no problem. As long as your neons are adult it wont eat them, but any fry in that tank or anything less than a cm long will be eaten, they have a carnivorous streak.

Well sounds like I might pick up one of these guys tomorrow. Does anyone know how to sex them?

Colour is the same for both sexes, but the rear of the dorsal is rounded for the females and pointed for the males. they'll need to be at least an inch and a half long before you can spot that though.