This is the easiest group to determine the sex. Other groups are almost near impossible to determine the sex but when they are adults you will notice the the fins are longer on the males and in several species the males are much larger then the females. The Geophagus family is a South American native but only one inhabits Central America in Panama and that’s Geophagus crassilabris. The Geophagus is divided into six subfamilies of which the Geophaginae contained 16 genera divided among three tribes. Acarichthyini, Crenicaratini and Geophagini. Within the Geophagus family there are several “groups” like Geophagus surinamensis group, Geophagus brasiliensis group, Geophagus steindachneri group and Geophagus argyrostictus group or as simply non-G. surinamensis group. The last one is a small group of only five species. About the Geophagus brasiliensis group, it has a different shape compared to the rest of the Geophagus family. It has a more shape like an Andinocara or Aquidens species. Besides that, they are more aggressive in behaviour as well and they don’t go well with smaller and too delicate species in the communal, but do better with more semi-aggressive to aggressive fish.
Take a look at these pictures below. How many species do you think there are?
Your looking at two species. Yes, there is only two species here. And did you notice the shape of these species? They don’t look like typical Geophagus cichlids. The one on the top two pictures is Geophagus itapicuruensis that inhabits Bahia State, Rio Itapicuru in Brazil and, to make the point, the two lower pictures is the Geophagus brasiliensis that is more widespread and inhabits Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay & Argentina.
Not is the difference though, on the two below pictures and the two above pictures. They’re some differences that are noticeable. The small difference is that the male has a little hump on its forehead and the more noticeable difference is the black vertical line that goes through the females eyes. This is really cool! The female has a vertical line through its eyes but on the male it dose not. So the next time your in the pet store sorting out your school of Geophagus of this particular ‘brasiliensis’ group, you know how to sex them.
As an additional note, the “Hobby Hemichromis” has a long list of names. First of all this fish was widely known as Hemichromis bimaculatus. It is most often still sold under this name. Then the name Hemichromis lifalili became well known and this was assumed to be the true name of the “Jewel cichlid“. Today we know that this beastie is Hemichromis guttatus. The Blue Neon variation is a line-bred colour form of the guttatus or, maybe a hybrid species between guttatus and one or two of the species mentioned earlier. The true bimaculatus is very rare if any really exist in the hobby at all. The same goes for the true lifalili.
On that note, I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s blog. As always thank you for your support and remember to subscribe and like!
Cheers!
The Aquatic Studio! 
Leave a comment