Species Profile: Eretmodus cyanostictus - Hill Country Cichlid Club

Species Profile: Eretmodus cyanostictusThe Eretmodus cyanostictus is commonlyknown as the Goby Cichlid and sometimesreferred to as the Horseface Cichlid. Withoutshowing you a picture it would be difficult todescribe this fish. But imagine for a moment ifyou will that the head does not look like mostof the fish you are familiar with. Imagine thetop of the head just over the eye region andthen have it slope downward, like a ski ramp.The shape of their head is not like most fish butresembling the face of a horse or a turtle beak.Not only are the physical characteristics different,but they are bi-parental mouthbreeders.The term implies that both female and malewill carry the fry. The female will carry theeggs for 8 to 12 days and then transfer thebrood to the male. He continues parental dutiesfor another 8 to 12 days.Goby Cichlid is found lake wide and in severaldifferent variants. They are located in the rockyarea of water no deeper than 3 cm. Their mainfood is the algae they scrape off from the rockstructures. In the wild it will reach a length of8 cm of which the male is larger than the female.Very hard to identify the sexes until theypair off and separate themselves from the others.I placed all in a 36 gallon corner tank. Watertemperature is 80 degrees F and tank containsmall piece of holey rock and PVC pipe. Iplaced a tank divider flat against one side of thetank, which came into play later on. Also aPhoto by Dave Hansenpower head was added to a sponge filter tocreate water movement and some filtration.Majority of filtration was accomplished by anEmperor 200 filter. Florescent lighting wasused 14 to 15 hours daily. Tank maintenancewas a 20% change of water volume once aweek and changing filter was every two orthree weeks. The Gobys were fed HBH Veggieflakes and Spirulina pellets.As you can see the Goby is a very unique fish,not only is it a bi-parental mouth brooder andnot only because of the shape of its head butalso its short stocky body frame and long dorsalfin. The fin and body shape help the Gobymaintain balance in the turbulent water that isits habitat. Not only does the long dorsal helpkeep its balance but helps in its defense frompredators. Their dorsal contain the most spinesin the cichlid family which deter the fishingbirds that circle above. Another unique itemwww.HillCountryCichlidClub.com Page 1

Species Profile: Eretmodus cyanostictusof the Goby is it's under slung mouth whichallows feeding in a horizontal position on thealgae covered rocks in the shallow water. Lastbut not least is the size of the Goby's swimbladder. It is smaller in size and thus they arenot buoyant and when not swimming they willrest on the bottom. They will anchor themselveswith their pectoral and pelvic finsamongst the rock covered substrate.I have learned quite a bit from breeding thesefish and I made a few mistakes which lead toseveral fatalities. First of all, the literature Iread and information gathered showed to keepthem in groups of six or more. So I purchased14 of the "Blue Spot" from Bluechip Aquaticson October 15, 2005. A pair was soon observedand in a short time the female was holding fry.I did not actually see the spawning. My firstmistake was to catch the pair and move them toa 10 gallon tank. I mentioned a tank dividerthat was initially placed in breeding tank wasnow used to slowly maneuver the fish to a cornerand made catching the "right" fish a loteasier. Without the divider they would swimback in the group and hard to identify the rightpair.I watched the pair and it appeared that everythingwas doing fine when I observed the malenipping at the female's mouth. I thought thiswas where they would switch the fry. I waswrong this time, because I later found her deadand no fry. The male went back into the breedingtank. The swapping of the fry The next pairI placed in a 20 gallon and waited. Soon thefemale was holding. Later she transferred fryto the male, which of course I did not observe.Everything appeared fine until a couple ofdays later; I found male dead and no fry. Thefemale went back into breeding tank. On mythird attempt I waited for another pair to form,produce fry and switch fry to the male. I thenwaited several more days before I moved onlythe male to a 10 gallon tank. On November22, 2005 he released 3 fry. I took him out immediatelyand placed back into breeding tank.The three fry were fed the HBH flake in afinely crushed form. They are growing fastand doing well.I am hoping to observe more of the spawningand the swapping of the fry among the parents.This has been quite a learning experiencefor me and it did not fair well with some ofthe Gobys. Because of their nature, I assume Ineed a larger tank to place the "pairs" in forspawning. The 20 gallons did not suit theirpersonality. For those that have bred this fish,I hope you had a better time of it than I did.And if you read this article and it is a fish youkeep and breed, let me know your secrets. Forall the reasons I have mentioned you shouldrealize this was not an easy fish to spawn andto have fry survive. If you attempt to breedthis fish, I suggest you contact some one whohas managed to successfully spawn the Gobycichlid or do extensive research.Information on geographic locations and otherinformation on the Eretmodus cyanostictuswas gathered from forums on ■ Jim Beckwww.HillCountryCichlidClub.com Page 2