These are not actually Madagascan but always get lumped into the Madagascan category as an "other." Etroplus are the only cichlids endemic to India and Sri Lanka. A paper in 2014 reclassified E. maculatus as Pseudetroplus maculatus.
The wild color form of these fish is basically non-existent in the US hobby from what I can tell. There is a bright yellow-gold aquarium morph that was extremely common in the hobby when I was a kid, in the mid 90s. You could find them in most stores and also in books and magazines. Those seemed to disappear over the last 20 years, too. Luckily Jeff Michels at Aquaticclarity placed an order for Czech-bred fish and these were on the list, so I pre-ordered ten.
I picked up the group at the airport on July 22 and tanked them around 10pm. The next day by 2pm I had a pair starting to form.
After eight days of shimmying, dancing, cleaning potential spawning sites, and chasing their tankmates, I came home to a clutch of green eggs yesterday. Unlike the New World and West African cichlids that I usually work with, these fish tether their eggs to the spawning site by a short filament, allowing the eggs to sway in the current. For this and many other reasons, including shape, color, and behavior, they feel a lot more like saltwater fish than a cichlid. They are found in brackish water in their native range, so perhaps this is why.
I would love to eventually get my hands on the wild color form of these fish. I know that Jim Cumming maintains a pair in Canada; the trick is getting them exported here, especially with everything shut down at the border due to COVID-19. Until then, I will be glad that I finally found the gold morph and that it's not completely lost to the hobby.
The wild color form of these fish is basically non-existent in the US hobby from what I can tell. There is a bright yellow-gold aquarium morph that was extremely common in the hobby when I was a kid, in the mid 90s. You could find them in most stores and also in books and magazines. Those seemed to disappear over the last 20 years, too. Luckily Jeff Michels at Aquaticclarity placed an order for Czech-bred fish and these were on the list, so I pre-ordered ten.
I picked up the group at the airport on July 22 and tanked them around 10pm. The next day by 2pm I had a pair starting to form.
After eight days of shimmying, dancing, cleaning potential spawning sites, and chasing their tankmates, I came home to a clutch of green eggs yesterday. Unlike the New World and West African cichlids that I usually work with, these fish tether their eggs to the spawning site by a short filament, allowing the eggs to sway in the current. For this and many other reasons, including shape, color, and behavior, they feel a lot more like saltwater fish than a cichlid. They are found in brackish water in their native range, so perhaps this is why.
I would love to eventually get my hands on the wild color form of these fish. I know that Jim Cumming maintains a pair in Canada; the trick is getting them exported here, especially with everything shut down at the border due to COVID-19. Until then, I will be glad that I finally found the gold morph and that it's not completely lost to the hobby.
