Eartheater

[Biddles95]

What is the smallest eartheater you can get for tropical ?
and what is there needs?
thanks
Billy

 

[Wills]

The smallest Eartheaters are the Mikrogeophagus aka Blue Rams and Bolivian Rams - they need around 15g but 20g is better. Then you move upto the Biotemedia species aka Cupid Cichlids which are are happy in around 30gallons or more. Then you get Geophagus and Satanoperca which are much larger and more complex groups. Satanopercas are about 5 species ranging from 8-12 inches. Then you get Geophagus, which is split into 3 sections first is the Surinimensis type second is the Brasiliensis type and the third is the Stiendachnary type. In the Surinimensis type the smallest are things like Pindare and Tapajo Red Heads which get between 6-8 inches then all the way up to some Altifrons variants that get up 12 inches. In the Brasiliensis type you get Geophagus Brasiliensis which makes a meaty 12 inches and a few other smaller ones like Improgenisis which only makes about 4 inches so happy in about a 30 gallon. Then in Stiendachnary there are a hand full of species which all make around 8 inches but the males of Stiendachnary are quite aggressive so big tanks are a must.

What ever the size and species of the eartheater you get they need a sand substrate as they literally eat the ground and then sift it through their gills leaving any food behind in their mouths for them to eat and larger grains of sand and gravel can get stuck in their gills and cause all kinds of problems.

Wills

 

[Biddles95]

woah you know your stuff
all i can say is.. I NEED A BIGGER TANK

Billy

 

[meguro]

wills left out a few genera, an obvious one being gymnogeophagus. but even apistogramma are inculded in the subfamily geophaginae and they are smaller than mikrogeophagus for the most part.

http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophaginae

although many acara-like cichlids will display earth-eater behaviour of sifting the substrate through their mouth/gills eg. keyhole cichlids, blue acaras etc.

 

[Wills]

I left gymnogeophagus out because of their special care needs, to be fair its best not mentioning them because IMO they are so hard to keep and realistically they are in such massive risk every year of their lives.

Apistos are in the genus yes but not really eartheaters IMO - so far as they are not best kept in groups, dont actively sift sand in the same way as the others.

That list is pretty interesting though, a few species Ive not heard of before - off to google I go. One I just realised I missed and also one that I thought was in that genus is Guianacaras

Also just realised I missed Acarichthys off as well

But then again I would place my money on this being the next Genus to be re evaluated so we could see a lot of new names emerging very soon. Aequedens and Cryptoheros have already been done in the past 2 years and I reckon that Crenicichla and Geophaginae are the next families to get changed around - we will probably see the 3 complex of the geophagus group get split into new species names with Surinimensis probably keeping the Geophagus name but then again it would be interesting to see which of the three actually matches the original description best!

Wills