The Blackbelt Cichlid gets its name from two things: firstly the vertical black stripe around its flank, and secondly its toughness. Vieja maculicauda is a tough, aggressive fish and should be respected as such.

Maculicauda is a relatively easy fish to keep. They are not impossible to breed, but not the easiest fish either. If you seriously intend to breed this fish, it is a wise decision to house 6 juvenile fish in a large tank (212 litres at least), and let them pair off. When a pair has be…

Scleromystax spp. are foraging omnivores, and most will accept sinking dried foods as well as small live and frozen varieties such as chironomid larvae (bloodworm), Tubifex, etc. Feeding a varied diet will ensure the fish are in optimum condition.

Under no circumstances should they be expected to survive on ‘left-overs’ from other inhabitants of the aquarium or relied on to ‘clean’ the aquarium.

The most obvious distinguishing characters are that the black marking in the upper part of the body is restricted to the area beneath the dorsal-fin and extends into the majority of the fin , while the paler patch anterior to it, on top of the head, is yellowish rather than orangish.

Additional diagnostic characters have proven unavailable thus far since it was described in a hobbyist magazi…

This species’ name is commonly misapplied to a number of similar-looking fishes and it can be difficult to identify if collection locality is unknown. In addition, colour pattern is variable and it’s not clear whether this occurs between, within, or both between and within populations.

In the original description, Steindachner did note that the first three dorsal-fin rays are completely black while the remainder is whi…

This species is somewhat variable in appearance and can have between 1-3 dark lateral stripes on each flank, for example. It’s also known by the alternative common name ‘pink corydoras’.

It looks similar to the congener C. loxozonus plus unidentified fishes which have been assigned the codes C003 and CW021, and all four are sometimes traded under the fabricated names C. ‘deckeri’ or C. sp. ‘decker/deker’.

This species is among the more popular Corydoras in the aquarium hobby and is widely available. It may also be referred to as ‘arched cory’.

There exist a number of similar-looking congeners, particularly C. urucu (Britto et al., 2009), described from the rio Urucu in Coari municipality, Amazonas state, Brazil, and C. narcissus from the rio Purus. The latter appears to have also been traded as C. sp. ‘super arcuatus longnose’ while a larg…

Type locality is given as ‘Small tributary of the upper Rio Negro on the equator near São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Brazil’, and this species is apparently highly endemic there.

Some sources state that it also occurs in the rio Uaupés (known as ‘Vaupés’ in Colombia), a major tributary of the Negro, but we’ve been unable to obtain confirmation thus far.

Despite the ubiquity of its name in aquarium literature, confusion surrounds its true identity. Given it’s the only member of the genus occurring on the island, fish from Trinidad do presumably represent C. aeneus (see our image), but the classification of those from other localities appears far from certain.

Today the species is accepted to occur throughout much of South America, and indeed similarly-patterned fish do occur across a large portion of the continent. Some of these, such as the gree…

An incredibly hardy, nocturnal species with very poor vision, P. delhezi relies on its excellent sense of smell to locate food. This species, along with others of its genus, is one of the last surviving relatives of very ancient species. Fossils of earlier relatives have been found that date back to the Triassic Period, which occured during the early development of the dinosaurs more than 200 million years ago.

They have several interesting adaptations. The swim bladder is divided into 2 par…

This is the only species in the genus Erpetoichthys, and is an incredibly hardy, nocturnal species. Due to its poor vision, the Ropefish relies on its excellent sense of smell to locate food. It's closely related to the Polypterus genus and both these are some of the last surviving relatives of very ancient species. Fossils of earlier relatives have been found that date back to the Triassic Period, which occured during the early development of the dinosaurs, more than 200 million years ago….