Above: a nice young premium Biotodoma Cupido swimming in one of our aquariums, when one of us snapped this picture.
Click here to see several more pictures.
Comments: This is a wonderful aquarium fish, which lives across a huge region of the Amazon Rainforest in South America.
Behaviors: The males are rather aggressive to each other, so it's probably best to keep just one male in an aquarium with a few females.
Temperature: this species is adapted to a warm summer and a cool winter. So depending on your location, you might not heat the aquarium during the winter.
Probably 77 to 82 F. is a good range for summer, and 68 to 73 F. is a good range for winter.
Food: premium flakes when small and premium pellets when larger.
Sizes: males to about 5.5" long, females to about 4.5" long. This is a nice size range for aquariums.
Aquarium: maybe a 30-gallon aquarium, when you have a few of them that are less than 3" long.
Eventually a group of them will need an aquarium with at least 60-gallons of water.
Water: They probably prefer water with a pH of about 6.5 with very little hardness hardness.
Most of the water in the US has a higher pH and higher hardness but seems to be OK, so it's probably best not to try to adjust the water, unless you want to breed them, then you might want to dilute their water with RO-Water.
Filters: a Bio-Wheel Filter is best, and a Penguin 200B Filter is the right size for a 30-gallon aquarium.
Later get a bigger aquarium and add as many Penguin 350B Filters as will fit across the back of that aquarium.
Lava Rocks: are recommended as a method of reducing the nitrates in the water to the ideal range.
Click here for more about Lava Rocks.
Breeding: They lay bright orange eggs on the side of rock, then carefully care for their babies.
It is interesting that the female lays the eggs and then somewhat later the mail fertilizes them.
The fry are small and more difficult to raise than most South American Cichlids.
Scientific name: Biotodoma cupido
Variations: this species occurs over a wide area, and as expected there are several different color variations depending on the location.
We wonder if someday they'll be considered separate species.
DrTom - 06/23/2015
All of our fish are Premium Quality Fish from the best suppliers in the world. Our fish have better health, more energy and brighter colors, as you can see in our pictures on this website.
We have 380-aquariums with lots-and-lots of popular aquarium fish plus lots-and-lots of rare fish!
We consider ourselves to be the link between the world's best sources of fish and the world's best customers. We love our work, and we are very responsible about caring for our fish and then shipping them carefully.
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When you purchase pet fish from us, you know you're receiving premium quality fish and premium quality service.
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"Once in the tank, they became very active and are now thriving in their new home.
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Nevin and DrTom, the Bailey Brothers
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The Product Manager has been with the company for more than 35-years.
So we feel very confident that this is the fishiest crew anywhere.