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Are the Any that only get to 12cm, or 5" (or maybe less?)

thank you

Closest I can get is Thorichthys callolepis at 12 cm and TBH the smaller they get, the more likely they are to become midwater feeders than bottom feeders.The smaller the fish biologically speaking, the more likely it is to become a more generalist feeder, and you might find most of the smaller ones midwater feeding just like a regular acara. Ie , not much use as a fish for turning over gravel. The combination of a small fish with a large mouth, and the muscular strength and bouyancy stability to handle large amounts of digging is less practical for survival as a living style for a small fish.

"Eartheating" generally requires digestive efficiency for it to work well,and the fish has to be strong enough from the nutrient it recieves and is capable of collecting to be viable, and generally the bigger the fish the more efficient it becomes. Theres probably a biological imperative based around nutrient availability and metabolism that limits eartheaters to being within the 6 -18 inch size range. A smaller fish might not find moving gravel around practical in terms of balancing its workload vs the calories it can find, and a much larger fish would have to have a slower metabolism (ie like a 3 foot giraffe catfish) for this method of feeding to work for it. Having a slow metabolism though isnt practical for cichlids as it would mean abandoning other behaviours that really typify the group, stuff like intelligence, fast breeding, territoriality, aggression, these are all activities that burn the calories, and require a fish to have a moderately high metabolic rate. Being around just shy of 1 foot in length is probably optimum size for an eartheater cichlid.

Besides I notice from your other post, you have a GT. You wouldnt trust small fish with that beast anyway. As it is, even with the medium sized eartheaters you might have aggression issues.