Andinoacura Rivulatus- Green Terror Cichlid:

This is an article about two special fish that are Green Terror Cichlids. They are brother and sister and are both nearly blind. Their parents were a mated pair of Green Terror Cichlids which I purchased for breeding stock. I had them for about a month when they begin to spawn.

Once they started spawning the female would lay between 200 and 400 eggs every nine days. That is great if you have a commercial breeding set up but not when you live in an 800 square foot apartment on the second floor. By the end of the second month I had three 55 gallon fish tanks with different size Green Terror Fry in them. Mom and Dad were separated to prevent any more hatchlings!

The Green Terror Cichlid is a Central American Cichlid that is found on the Pacific Ocean side of Ecuador and Puru. These beautiful fish are found in the river Tumbes more towards the coast then inland. Adult males can reach upwards of 12 inches and females stop growing once they produce eggs. There have been cases of 12 inch females but most females stop growing at about 3-5 inches in length.

CARE:

Green Terror's are fairly easy to keep and are hardy fish. They are not fussy about their environment so long as the water chemistry is good. Temperature can range from about 70-82 degrees Fahrenheit. I typically keep my South American and Central American Cichlids at 76 degree unless I have breeding pairs and then I keep them at 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

DIET:

I am not a fan of pellet food. It is dry and can lead to serious health issues. For fish that are less then two inches I feed a good quality flake food and live or frozen brine shrimp, tubi-flex-worms, or krill that is cut up into smaller pieces. With fish that are over two inches I feed them Tubi-flex worms and frozen krill. I also put Anachoris in the tank so that they have greens to eat. I almost always feed twice per day.

This Green Terror is named Helen. I do not normally name my fish but she and I have had quite a time together. Helen and her brother Herc, which is short for Hercules I have raised since they were about an inch long. I found them being picked on and near death, hiding in the back of their tank. I removed them both to a ten gallon tank and weaned them back a healthier state. It was then that I noticed that Helen is pretty much blind and Herc have extremely limited vision.

The culprit here I suspect is that their parents are actually brother and sister. And the shortened gene pool led to blindness and impaired vision as a genetic disorder. There is a good lesson here for people who wish to breed fish. Pairs should be formed under observation and the stock should come from two separate sources.

Most fish breeders would cull these fish or destroy them. I am just not into that and as such, made the decision that I would keep them until they died of natural causes. They are currently house in separate 20-gallon aquariums. I had hope to house them together but they fought like cats and dogs. Now they live apart and are very calm and mostly happy fish.

The Amazing thing about both of these fish is that they can tell the difference between my foot steps and my roommates foot steps. Herc gets very excited and wags his tail like a happy dog when I am at his tank. He knows he is going to get a treat of some kind. Helen has an entirely different way that she shows gratitude... she spits a stream of water at me if I walk by and do not stop. She also lets me know when she wants something because she likes to splash water out of the tank. She has remarkable aim. Both Helen and Herc are about six inches long. They do not show the typical vibrant coloration that is found in their species but they are beautiful in their own way. Herc is by much closer to the actual look of these fish then is Helen. That is mostly because she is a female. The males will eventually develop a lump on their forehead called a KOK... which was always an interesting conversation when little old ladies asked what that thing on their (Green Terror's) head was. I doubt that Herc will develop a frontal lobe KOK because of his eye impairments. Only the strong survive and in the wild neither of these two would have lived for long, nor would they have likely mated. Cichlids prove their worthy by fighting. The males will fight with the females to see if the other is strong enough to defend their fry. Both parents take care of the babies until the fry are old enough to take care of themselves. Watching Cichlids become parents is an awesome event.