Publication2 med aquascape Publication1cs complete | Page 54

Full grown adults are deep bodied powerful fish
and need space, failing to give them this respect
could be a recipe for disaster! A small group of
juveniles or semi- adult fish can be brought up in
smaller aquariums, but larger tanks will be need-
ed if you plan to keep these cichlids long term.
Decorate the tank using rocks driftwood and sand
gravel mix. Plants will more than likely be up
rooted or eaten, so not a particularly good idea
to add them, however, I have had some success
with floating plants, mainly using Ceratophylum.
sp (Hornwort).
Water quality should be kept in check, but as a
rule, water should be hard/ medium hardness, a
pH range between 7-8 and temperature between
24 – 28 c. Vieja’s are large messy fish, so a large
biological filtration system will be needed to
cope. Regular water changes are a no brainer and
should be part of any regular maintenance rou-
tine of any sort of fish tank.
Buy from a reputable dealer or breeder, where
you can see the parents of the fish. Specialised
importers are the best place to go when dealing
with these fish as many will buy their stock from
reputable breeders and stockist. If your goal is
to keep a large tank with a community of these
different fish, then perhaps species purity may
not be a priority, so by all means buy these pos-
sible hybrids.
Aquarium care
Many of the species from the complex are large
and can easily attain sizes up to 30cm in the
confines of the aquarium; therefore we need to
be thinking large tanks of at least 200cm x 60 x
60 cm, community setups should perhaps be
even larger. You may think I’m being over gener-
ous with the sizes quoted, but from experience
fully grown adult fish or pairs need plenty of
space for spawning or any territorial issues.
Vieja maculicauda is the type specimen for the genus Vieja and also has
the widest distribution range
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