Firemouths and the planted tank

[trackhazard]

Disclaimer: I am posting my own experiences with the Firemouth (Thoricthys Meeki) and my planted tank. I am not an expert on these fish, planted tanks, any form of animal husbandry or in anything in particular. Your results may vary.



I finally got to setting up my 75 gallon tank that had been sitting empty in my office for 6 months. It all went together late March/early April of this year. I had my tank, my equipment, my plants and scape all put together but was still struggling w/ stocking.

I had been wanting to do some kind of breeding fish as I have two young boys who would get a kick out of it and I thought that it would be an interesting way of showing them the cycle of life. I began my search with a couple of conditions:

• readily available/inexpensive
• easy to care for
• liked hard water (water from tap is naturally hard)
• spawns relatively easily
• somewhat colorful/active
• not too large/able to be kept in numbers
• plant friendly

I figured that cichlids of some sort would fit the bill so that's where I started. Eventually, my search on the internet provided me with Thoricthys meeki aka Firemouth cichlid. Firemouths are hardy, Central American fish that like hard water, breed easily, are not finicky about food or water params and breed without much effort. They also stay relatively small (4"-6") and aren't destructive to plants. They are quite active and aren't overly aggressive towards tank mates when given enough space.

Here is eventually what they ended up living in:



I started out with 6 juveniles from the local pet store hoping I would get one or possibly two pairs:







I also added a few Giant Danios as dither fish. I started w/ 13 but a number of them decided that they liked the hardwood floor better than the tank. I'm down to four currently and am thinking of replacing them with something smaller. The danios I have are pretty large and I think they throw off the scale of the Firemouths.



Things went ok for the first couple weeks. Firemouths were skittish as they got used to their new surroundings but eventually came out. They seemed to leave the plants alone (Anubias sp & Microsorium all attached on driftwood or rocks). The Firemouths spent most of their days sifting through the gravel substrate and flaring at each other. Eventually, a pecking order was established and the dominant male became king of the tank. He would chase the other fish away from his territory but most of the altercations didn't result in any damage to either fish. He may have chased some of the Giant danios out of the tank but its just as likely that they jumped out on their own as they are known to be flighty.

About a month ago, the dominant male and one of the females decided to claim a piece of PVC pipe placed on the right had side of the tank as a nesting area. The male dug a depression in front of the pipe (this may be the only instance where these fish might be harmful to rooted plants) and the female spawned inside. She would sit there guarding the pipe while the male would alternately dig and keep intruders away. About 4 days later, I was greeted with the sight of the parents guarding a cloud of about 50 fry.



My kids loved the fact that there were baby fish in the tank and I must admit I felt a sense of accomplishment as well although there was nothing I did personally to induce the situation (the Barry White I played on the radio might have helped just slightly.) However, I was soon faced with the dilemma of what to do with all these baby fish. I decided to leave them in the tank and let nature take its course. It may sound cruel but I was more interested in the spawning behavior than in rearing any fry. I was hoping the other Firemouths and danios would pick off a majority of them until I only had a few make it to the juvenile phase.

Well, it seems that sometimes nature was a little too efficient. Every day the parents would parade the fry around the nest and every day the cloud of fry got smaller and smaller. The parents would snap up fry that would wander off to far and spit them back into the group but I could have sworn that there were a couple times where the number coming out of the parents' mouths did not match the number of fry going in. Maybe the danios were too fast for the parents to defend against. Who knows but it seems as if my fears about being swamped with a bunch of baby fish was not going to happen.

The fry lasted about a week, after which there were none in the tank that I could spot. It could be that they are hiding between the leaves of the java fern but so far, I haven't seen anything. As Robert Frost wrote,

"Nothing gold can stay."

and this is the lesson of the week for my kids. Everything that has a beginning has an end as well. My oldest son who is 4 didn't like the lesson at first but when I told him the cycle of life was going to repeat itself eventually, he perked up.

Last Sunday, my son woke me up and rushed me to the tank. The dominant male had chosen a new mate (maybe his previous relationship had not worked out as well as he would have liked) and the pair had spawned in the PVC condo.

The cycle of life begins anew.

For anyone who is considering a relatively mild mannered fish for the planted tank, I really urge you to consider the Firemouth. They have been a great addition to my aquarium and I can't recommend them highly enough.

Charlie

[macclellan]

bravo!

i think i saw this on c-f.com somewhere, sometime.

[CobraGuppy]

nice tank.

What substrate is that?

By the way, your fourth picture looks so natural! I can actually imagine someone taking a pic of that in the wild, minus the white tubing on the top left.

[xandert]

Beautiful tank! I love the plant and rock arrangements. No wonder your firemouths are so happy where they are.

Thanks for sharing all the wonderful information.

[SearunSimpson]

Wow! That looks much bigger than a 75. Now I want to make my new 90gl a firemouth tank. That looks just amazing!

[mistergreen]

cool entry.
I hear the Apistograma species are nice as well.

[trackhazard]

Thanks everyone for the kind words.

maclellan, i tend to post in a couple forums and all my stuff is disjointed cause I forget what I posted where. I think I left off at c-f at just after the first batch of fry.

Charlie

[trackhazard]

Cobraguppy, the substrate is plain gravel I got from my brother in law.

Charlie

[Adhlc]

incredible tank!

[waterfaller1]

Aww..just red X's for me

[rasetsu]

Great to see that those firemouths work well for your set-up. I've had firemouths before and they were nasty SOBs. For the most part, firemouths and plants don't mix as they will dig the plants out. They won't eat them, but their digging will cause them to uproot. From your pics, it looks like your plants are either attached to wood or with rocks nicely surrounding the bases. A very nice looking arrangement.

I have a feeling that the firemouths may have harrassed the danios into jumping out. I think it might be better left as a species only tank. I had 2 pairs in a 60 gallon before with some various other cichlids and they were feisty.

Definetly unique and glad to see you are successful with it.

[eyebeatbadgers]

Very nice tank and interesting post!

Thanks!

[fshfanatic]

Absolutely beautiful tank. Bravo! Rep for you! I have been considering tearing down my 125 tanganykan tank but couldnt decide what to put in it. This might be it!