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Hello

At my LFS I bought an interesting little Cichlid called a Geophagus. It is young, probably 4-5 months old. About four inches long approx. I was told by the LFS it was a Geophagus anyway. When I saw it I loved it. It has sides of light illuminant green spots with fading stripes in the background (very light). It's tail fin is flat & short and grey. The head is grey and similar to a Horsehead Cichlid, I suppose (I've never seen one in real life). He's very friendly, comes to the front of the tank since day two, doesn't burrow very much at all, (I thought it was an EarthEater but I'm not sure now).

PLUS it also has a thin black stripe across it's head that stops at the top of it's eye and then continues under the eye.

With this description, can anyone tell me if I have a Jurupari or if indeed it is a Geophagus? It's the last time I go to this LFS soley because I'm never sure how accurate they are about the fish they sell me.

Thanks, Marc

BTW, really starting to love this site!!

Geophagus is a genus, and Jurupari is a species within the genus Satanoperca. Members of both genuses are generally called 'Eartheaters'. The fish you described (notably the stripe through the eyes) seems to be a Satanoperca jurupari.

I used to own a pair of F1/P-gen Satanoperca Juruparis and a group of wild caught Geophagus tapajos. They were all great fun... until they murdered eachother (they were all juvies in a 29 gal tank... ran out of space as they grew... didn't have a bigger tank (they were a birthday present... I never planned for 'em)).

Anyway, if you have some pics of 'em I could ID 'em for you. I could dig around and find some pics of mine, too...

Great and many thanks. It's actually the line through the eye that thru me because the book I own, "500 FreshWater Aquarium Fish: A visual reference" by Greg Jennings has a photo of one and it doesn't have the stripe over and below the line. Plus when I search on google, all photo's have been of mature Jurupari and they don't seem to have the black stripe either. Must be something that they lose as they mature?

Anyway, yeah, mine is great fun too. He's very friendly and get's on with the other 'few' fish.

Marc

ALSO

Forgot to mention the Dorsal fin. It's grey at the back, but at the front, the first two are black and short and then the next two are white. Very Mohican!

Marc