What Species Is This?

[Kimberly_keidron]

I'm not extremely new to the hobby, but I'm no veteran. I have a 55gal over-filtered tank with a school of different colored tinfoil barbs as the main attraction. But my question is this: I have a fish that was sold to me when I first started keeping fish. He was sold to me as a convict cichlid, however after weeks of looking at hundreds of species of fish, I cant find a single one that comes even relatively close to looking like this one. His temperament is aggressive and territorial, I have a skull décor that he claims as his no matter how I rearrange my tank. If any other fish comes close he chases and nips, and the rest of the community has come to terms that he owns half of the tank. He's mostly nocturnal, only coming out to defend his hide away during the day. He's not a picky eater. I've attached a couple pictures from different angles. If anyone could help identify him it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Am certainly no expert when it comes to cichlids, but that reminds me of a Firemouth Cichlid.
 
Although am not certain this is a firemouth, the body shap and forehead certainly is like firemouth but the markings slightly differ, maybe this is a young firemouth.
 
Hopefully someone will chime in sooner or later with the specie of this nice looking cichlid.

 

[Akasha72]

I'd agree he looks like some kind of firemouth. I'm just looking on google images now and there are a few that look very similar

 

[Munroco]

Unusual, I'd say it was aeqidens family. I don't see it being a firemouth.

 

[*pete*]

Think it might be a young Nandopsis Salvini.

 

[Munroco]

Cichlasoma salvini? 
 
You posted as I was typing Pete. Not cichlasoma anymore then?

 

[*pete*]

Cichlasoma salvini? 
 
You posted as I was typing Pete. Not cichlasoma anymore then?

They were Cichlasoma back in the day when I kept Cichlids  !!!... guess they got re-classified.

 

[SherLar]

How large is it now? It's certainly no convict. As stated by others, the shape is right for a firemouth, but even young firemouths normally show much more color. It does strongly resemble Nandopsis Salvini. If it starts showing red or orange on the abdomen, I'd say you have your species.

 

[Kimberly_keidron]

He's around 3.5 inches now. Has kind of a luminescent blue around his eyes and surrounding his mid stripe if I use flash. Also, I've never seen a top horizontal stripe on a firemouth. I noticed red speckles along his abdomen when searching the species, I assumed it was just an oddball female convict.

I'm positive that he's the nandopsis salvini. Same face stripes, fin shapes, everything. Explains why I had so much trouble figuring him out, every cichlid site I looked on didn't include that species. Thank you so much everyone!

 

[Akasha72]

glad you got it sorted