Jewel cichlid

Water parameters

Tolerated range for this species. Aim for the middle of each band rather than the extremes.

Tank and habitat

Substrate: sand.

Behavior

Plant interaction: digs around roots.

Feeding

Omnivore that eats anything with enthusiasm. Cichlid pellets, flake, frozen bloodworm, frozen brine shrimp, frozen mysis, live food (earthworms, blackworms), and blanched vegetables. They're active hunters that chase live food aggressively. Feed twice daily. The red coloration intensifies dramatically on a varied diet with carotenoid-rich foods (shrimp, krill-based pellets). A straight dry-food diet produces duller coloring.

Compatibility

• Aggressive, especially during breeding. A pair defending a brood will attack anything in the tank, including fish twice their size. The aggression is genuine, not bluff; they cause real damage.
• Not a community fish. Best kept as a pair in a species tank, or in a large tank (200 L) with other robust, assertive species that can defend themselves: other medium cichlids, large barbs, and armored catfish.
• Beautiful but temperamental. The vivid red coloration during breeding is among the most intense in freshwater fishkeeping. The trade-off is managing the aggression that comes with it.
• Multiple species are sold as 'jewel cichlid' (Hemichromis bimaculatus, H. lifalili, H. guttatus, and others). Care is similar across species but aggression levels vary. H. lifalili tends to be slightly less aggressive than H. bimaculatus.

Origin and habitat

Hemichromis bimaculatus is a West African cichlid, the original jewel cichlid, found along the coast from southern Guinea through Sierra Leone to central Liberia, in creeks, streams, and canals over mud or sand, often near forest cover and sometimes into brackish lagoons. Recent taxonomy has moved several jewel cichlids out of Hemichromis into the genus Rubricatochromis, so some references now list this fish as Rubricatochromis bimaculatus, though the older name stays in common use. The jewel name covers a cluster of similar red-spangled species, and the fish is easily mixed up with relatives: the Florida invasive once called H. bimaculatus is now identified as H. letourneuxi, and H. lifalili is another close look-alike. Colour is the draw, an olive-brown fish at rest that floods with intense red and blue-green spangles when breeding, in both sexes. Reported sizes vary, with giving around 12 cm in captivity and hobby sources saying aquarium fish rarely exceed 15 cm. Pairs are monogamous and form lasting bonds.

Breeding

A substrate spawner that breeds readily and is among the more prolific aquarium cichlids. A bonded pair cleans a flat rock and the female lays a clutch of several hundred adhesive eggs, after which both parents guard hard, the female tending the eggs while the male holds the perimeter. Colour peaks during brood care, both fish glowing red. The eggs hatch in a few days, the fry are shifted to a pit near the site and herded as a tight cloud, and the parents defend them fiercely for weeks. Fry take baby brine shrimp and crushed flake and grow quickly. The catch is the aggression: during brood care a pair attacks everything in the tank, intense enough that keepers report being struck at when reaching into the water.

Common problems

Breeding aggression is the central problem. A spawning pair in a community tank can injure or kill everything else, so a species tank, or a very large tank with tough tankmates and broken sightlines, is the only reliable approach. Outside breeding, a single fish is manageable alongside other medium, robust fish. Pairing is its own hazard, since not every male and female bond and a dominant fish can kill a partner it rejects, so letting pairs form from a group works better than forcing them together. Health problems are few; the species is hardy across a wide range of conditions, with ich mainly a concern in stressed new fish. The cosmetic letdown is that the spectacular red fades to plain olive-brown when the fish are not in breeding condition.

Bioload

Further reading

• How to cycle a fish tank
• Stocking ideas by tank size