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Breeding Uaru amphiacanthoides

By Jim Greenwald

I have always been fascinated with Uaru.

The Uaru is a peaceful, schooling cichlid. They have a body similar in shape to Cichlasoma severum, but yellowish-brown to gray in color. They have a thick black marking that runs from their gills to their caudal fin, where the black marking is met with a black dot. A fully grown Uaru develops a heavy cushion of fat about the neck.

Sporting an elongated body which is deep and laterally compressed. The Uaru has large dorsal and anal fins that taper to a point. It's color is yellowish-brown with a black cone shaped mark along the sides that gets narrower towards the caudal fin. Other black marks are located at the base of the caudal fin and the fills. It has a red iris. This impressive cichlid is hardly ever found in fish stores, despite its peaceful character. They can be kept together with other species. It is mainly their size and their requirement for tanks of at least 55 gallon, that may have kept them away from our aquaria. Their water should be soft and slightly acidic.

In their natural environment they are found together with Discus Symphysodon species, Pterophyllum Angelfish and Mesonauta species such as festivus, the Flag-cichlid. There are two species in this genus. The ideal Uaru aquarium contains hiding places made of rock structures, dense vegetation, and a cover of floating plants beneath the water surface. Lighting should be subdued.

Although sturdy in appearance, this fish is actually quite delicate. It requires a spacious tank with numerous hiding places. Water should be kept around 27 °C. Vary its diet with both live animal matter and vegetation. The Uaru needs a tank with a gravel bottom and rocks with caves for hiding places. Plants are not needed so much for this fish. If choosing to not have plants, lighting in the tank should be subdued to make up for the lack of plants. There is a good chance that if you see an Uaru in your local pet shop that it is a wildcaught fish; captive-bred specimens are very rare.

Most of the time they are rather social animals. During spawning season, they occupy territories, which they defend vigorously. Despite their body size, this open-area spawner is not too productive (100-200 eggs). They practice bi-parental brood care.

The Uaru is one of the most difficult cichlids to breed. An open breeder, the female prefers spawning in darker places on rocks or plants, dropping 300 or so eggs. The addition of peat to the water is recommended. This species only pair during spawning season, when the males become less tolerant of other fishes.

Here's how I spawned them.

I started with seven juvenile Uarus, about the size of a silver dollar. I estimated that they were about four to six months old. Their color pattern was brown, covered with cream-colored spots. A few weeks later their spots disappeared and they started showing their adult color pattern.

They were fed on regular flake foods, tetra conditioning flakes, freeze dried krill, and scraped beef heart. I was raising them up in a 55 gallon. When they were about one year old I started feeding them lettuce and spinach. They gobbled up romaine and Boston lettuce but refused iceberg. As they grew larger this became an expensive diet, especially the quantities they consumed. I was advised by a close friend to try duckweed. They loved it! As they grew I moved the seven into a 100 gallon aquarium.

It was very difficult to sex these fish. I was able to get two pairs by waiting approximately one year until they paired off. One pair would stay together at the end of the hundred gallon tank. Since all seven Uarus looked alike, I zeroed in on one fish at the other end of the tank where the remaining five were and removed it to another 100 gallon tank. I kept removing them one by one in the same manner until only the pair remained. I was fortunate to get two pairs using this method. I sold the remaining three fish which I suspected were of the same sex. My two remaining pairs matured at about ten inches in length. Each pair was housed in a hundred gallon aquarium. A medium size Plecostomus was always present in each of the Uaru tanks to control algae growth. An alternative purpose for the Plecostomus is its usefulness as a dither fish.

At that time all of my thirteen tanks contained duckweed and salvinia for the sole purpose of feeding my remaining two pairs of adult Uarus. Every day they got net fulls of these floating plants which they devoured immediately. Along with their daily diet of floating plants, they received Tetra Dorogreen, Doromin, floating pellets, and large size Tetra Conditioning Food. They got and especially enjoyed large size freeze dried krill and beef heart once a week. I kept the water conditions at ten degrees of German Hardness and a pH value of 7.6. Water temperature was maintained at 82 degrees Fahrenheit. A 50% water change was given every two weeks. Filtration was provided by an outside power filter. The tank bottom was covered by fine river gravel to around a depth of two inches. Each tank contained a twelve inch diameter clay flowerpot laid on its side, with an additional few rocks. Aquarium lights were on from 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Each tank had two fluorescent tubes which have been partially sprayed with black paint to provide dim lighting as the Uarus are a gentle, shy fish and do not appreciate the bright lights.

I couldn't seem to provide the fish with the proper environment, so I decided to lower the pH to a pH of 6.2. Water temperature was raised to 80 - 85 degrees F. This seemed to work.

The male Uaru moves the sand with his mouth prior to spawning. They have spawned in every conceivable spot on the rocks and in and around the flowerpot. The fish turned very dark in color just prior to spawning.

For six months, the two pairs spawned every couple of weeks and sometimes within 24 hours of each other. They have always eaten the eggs when left in with them. At first, I removed the eggs on the rock after a spawn (approximately 100) and hatched them artificially with an air stone moving water over the rock. When they became free-swimming I tried to feed them newly-hatched brine shrimp, but the fry were too small to handle the shrimp. They refused microworms, fine flake food, and liquifry and consequently starved to death within a couple of days.

Once, one pair looked after the eggs until they hatched two days later. On the third day, when the wigglers were vibrating about, they were eaten. Although I was disappointed, this was progress because they had never looked after the fry this long. This particular pair seemed to be getting serious about raising their young. One month later, following another spawn disappearing, the female attacked the male and was clearly upset with him. Probably because he had been responsible for previously eating the eggs. Three weeks later, this same pair spawned on the flat side of a rock. This spawn was unusual in that the female showing a large thick ovipositor laid her eggs by turning herself completely horizontally. The male followed in the same manner. There was no space for them to spawn in this area without turning themselves sideways. This procedure took only a couple of hours. Both parents took turns fanning the eggs. I introduced a three inch goldfish as a second dither fish. The Uarus kept both the goldfish and the Plecostomus away from the spawn. Two days later, the light orange colored eggs hatched, but, unlike previous spawns, the female wanted nothing to do with the male and chased him away before he could eat the eggs. I removed him and left the female to guarding them. On the fourth day the eggs became brownish in color and were vibrating about. The female kept the young together as they moved about by gently sucking a fry in her mouth and releasing it back into the cluster. Usually at feeding time all of the Uarus would rush to the surface as I dropped food into the aquarium, but while the female was guarding her brood, she would only accept food that would sink near her.

Six days later, the female left the spawning site with a school of approximately 25 fry and went to the other end of the aquarium. It was a beautiful sight seeing the fry hovering by her, feeding off her body slime in the same manner as Discus do, but in this case, particularly feeding from her belly, ventral and anal fin areas. Two days later I introduced newly-hatched brine shrimp into the tank. The fry took it into their mouths and immediately spit it out. They continued to feed off the female's body only. They always had full bellies. It was only after ten days of free-swimming that they started feeding on newly-hatched brine shrimp. Their growth was very fast as they attained three-quarters of an inch in length after free-swimming for only two weeks.

Uaru amphiacanthoides is also known as Waroo and the Triangle Cichlid They are found in still waters with overgrowth from the Central Amazon Basin and Guyana in South America and reach a maximum size of twelve inches. The pH varies between 5.0 and 7.4. The temperature varies from 78-82 F.

References:

Axelrod, Herbert R. 1993, Lexicon of Cichlids, TFH Publications, New Jersey, USA
Axelrod, Herbert R. & Voorderwinkler, Henry 1966, Exotic Tropic Fishes, TFH Publications, New Jersey, USA
Fleischeris, Eugene, 1973, Raising and Spawning the Uaru, MODERN AQUARIUM
Goldstein, Robert. 1973, Cichlids, TFH Publications, New Jersey, USA