ex-Cichlasoma festae

Red terror; less common: Guayas Cichlid, Harlequin Cichlid. Also known as Amphilophus festae.

Cichlidae

Río Guayas, Guayaquil, Ecuador

Cichla (from Greek Kichle, a fish of the Labridae family known to ancient Greeks) + soma (Gk: body); referring to a body shape resembling to this of Cichla. ex- indicates that the fish used to be classified in this category. Currently this fish is awaiting reclassification.

festae (in honour of Dr. Enrico Festa, collector of the type material)

 Male: 50 cm SL, female: 30 cm SL. 

This species is characterized by the red base colour and the vertical black side bars on the body. It can be easily confused with Nandopsis urophthalmus.  'Cichlasoma' festae differs from N. uropthalmus in that they have a spot on the top half of the caudal peduncle, smaller eyes and a row of little squares instead of the banded pattern when young. In addition, the shoulder black bar (2nd bar from head) creates an “Y” in C. festae. In general, C. festae are much more colourful.

Female is more vividly coloured with deep red as the base colour all over the body. Males develop a cranial hump after the third year of their lives. Males show blue-green fluorescent spots in the tail from a young age which distinguishes them from females. Their overall colouration when not displaying is paler than the female with a noticeable blue green tinge; the side bars are absent of. Males get considerably larger than females. 

Ecuador, Rio Esmeraldas - Peru, Rio Tumbes

7.2-8.0

26^o C - 29^oC.   

Slight to moderately alkaline, medium to hard water.

Large size pellets for carnivore cichlids, some vegetable matter, will eat almost everything offered to it.

Usually only large, robust cichlids are recommended. Very large armoured catfish may be accepted if added in the tank before the introduction of the cichlid. It can get aggressive when spawning in which case it is likely to kill smaller tank mates.

We have kept a number of pairs of wild caught and F1 fish in different tanks. Tank mates included Madagascan cichlids (P. sp. "Andapa", P. menarambo, P. maculatus etc), Central American cichlids, large catfish, African cichlids (Hemichromis guttatus) and Puntius denisonii. The fish got on fine with all tank mates and though there were occasional tiffs there has never been any real aggression. Having said that the fish had plenty of space as the minimum tank size was 850 lit (2 meters long). In addition the festae were not fully grown yet.

A lot depends on the personality of the particular fish kept. Some will be able to get on happily with other fish, others will be more quarellsome. It is important to give these fish enough space and ensure they are well fed. This will help minimize incidents in the tank. 

There are two choices for the festae keeper. The first is to make the festae the top fish in the tank, in which case we would recommend the other tank mates to be large but easy going fish (ex Cichlasoma pearsei or Astronotous ocellatus is the obvious choice). The size of such tank mates will make the festae reconsider any planned attacks while the tank mates will neither provoke nor respond to aggression. The second choice is to keep the festae with large and aggressive tank mates, such as Parachromis managuensis, A. citrinellum, A. labiatus. Very large, aggressive, adult armoured catfish like L25, L24, L160 are also a good choice. Our experience so far indicates that in this case the ex- C. festae may not spawn.

It is important to note that this fish's aggression is reported to increase with age and size. ex-C. festae are likely to behave differently when they get over the 40 cm TL mark. Hobbyists should observe their fish and make appropriate changes / arrangements. Even then accidents are likely to happen.

1000 L for a grown up pair, more than 3000 L for a community of large cichlids. In this case, an overall length of 4 meters or longer is highly recommended.

Quite tricky to pair them off. Female must be smaller than the male otherwise she will kill him. Once paired, they will spawn easily and the fry are quite easy to raise. Males are aggressive towards females when the latter are not ready to spawn. Substrate spawner. For a breeding report see Keeping and Breeding the ex-Cichlasoma festae.