I am uncertain of the identification of a cichlid in our tank. When we purchased it, the pet store said it was a Firemouth cichlid. We bought it small (guessing around 1 - 1.5 inches) and it originally did fine with the other fish. Now that it is bigger (~ 3 inches) it kills other fish and is more aggressive than what I thought it'd be. It has a nasty set of visible, sharp teeth that gives it more of a battle advantage over the other fish. I'm questioning it's identification because it just doesn't really look like the firemouth pictures I'm finding on line. Those firemouths don't have a protruding lower jaw and visible teeth.
We recently introduced a convict, blood parrot, and a rainbow shark (added a few new rocks to the tank and rearranged everything). The blood parrot and firemouth are about the same size and the two battled for quite a while (locked jaws), now the blood parrot avoids the "firemouth". The firemouth ate the shark...we knew we were taking a bit of a risk with the shark's small size, but thought it had plenty of hiding spots...we were wrong. The "firemouth" doesn't both our pleco (~5-6 inches) at all and doesn't seem to pay much attention to the convict (although it chased the convict at first).
Our camera is out of batteries, so a brief description of the "firemouth" is: lower jaw protudes beyond the upper, surprisingly large and sharp teeth, turquoise spots on body and dorsal fin, and reddish coloration in belly region (although this coloration seems to come and go).
Can anyone provide any insight? I'd like to figure out what it is so I can be sure we have appropriate tank mates.
We recently introduced a convict, blood parrot, and a rainbow shark (added a few new rocks to the tank and rearranged everything). The blood parrot and firemouth are about the same size and the two battled for quite a while (locked jaws), now the blood parrot avoids the "firemouth". The firemouth ate the shark...we knew we were taking a bit of a risk with the shark's small size, but thought it had plenty of hiding spots...we were wrong. The "firemouth" doesn't both our pleco (~5-6 inches) at all and doesn't seem to pay much attention to the convict (although it chased the convict at first).
Our camera is out of batteries, so a brief description of the "firemouth" is: lower jaw protudes beyond the upper, surprisingly large and sharp teeth, turquoise spots on body and dorsal fin, and reddish coloration in belly region (although this coloration seems to come and go).
Can anyone provide any insight? I'd like to figure out what it is so I can be sure we have appropriate tank mates.
