Text & Photo by Alf Stalsberg.
Gymnogeophagus is neotropical cichlids, that the ones we knew, where known under the name Geophagus. Later in 1975 Dr. J.P. Gosse from Belgium made a revision of the Geophagus and put the others that did not fit into the genus Geophagus into Gymnogeophagus. Then nothing happen on this front before 1988, then came a new revision. "Gymnogeophagus Ribeiro, 1918, with descriptions of two new species (Pisces, Perciformes)". This description was by Roberto E. Reis & Luiz R. Malabarba.
In addition a new Gymnogeophagus was described in 1992 by Roberto E. Reis, Luiz R. Malabarba and Carla S. Pavanelli. "Gymnogeophagus setequedas, a new cichlid species (Teleostei: Labroidei) from middle rio Paraná system, Brazil and Paraguay".
These cichlids has it's distribution in Southern Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Northeastern part of Argentina.
Gymnogeophagus balzanii, (Perugia, 1891).
Photo of a male by Jørgen Jørgensen. Type locality: Vila Maria, Mato Grosso, Brazil.
Let me start with the one, I first came in contact with, then as Geophagus balzanii. The fish might not be the one you jump high in the air on the first sight, but you will surely fall in love with it when you have kept the fish for awhile. A big male looks like it has been speed driving and met the wall. The fish is quite easy to maintain, but I have found out that most of the fish does not like it hot. If you keep these fishes (Gymnogeophagus) on a high temperature in a long period they seem to "fade" away, and you will loose them.When I have ket the fish thru the winter on 19-20 degrees Celsius (even lower) and then in the spring raise the temperature to 23-24 they will probably start spawning if they are kept under good condition, and also been fed proper.
The fish is one of the biggest in the genus Gymnogeophagusbut still behave very nice, when they start laying eggs. The fish is rather shy, if you keep them together with other fish that is more active, then they will hide and you will not see them much.
When you find the fish in the shop, which is not very often, by at least five. When they are small, there is not big differences between the sexes, when they are about 7-8 cm. the males get a steeper forehead. Like I said earlier, they have run into a brickwall. The male also have som blue spots in the dorsal, anal and pelvic fins. He also got elongated the soft spine in the dorsal but also top and bottom at the caudal fin.
The fish search for food in the same manner as the Geophagus, they take a mouthful of sand and sift it and the sand is comming out thru the gills.
Gymnogeophagus cf. "meridionalis" from Uruguay. Photo: Alf Stalsberg
When I first got this fish I were not sure wether this fish should be Gymnogeophagus rhabdotus or Gymnogeophagus australis, because when I got the fish in the beginning of 1980's, no-one could tell. Later we found out that conf. to aquarium litterature this fish should be G. rhabdotus., so we settled for that. Then nothing happen before a new paper came in 1988. It was "Revision of the Neotropical Cichlid Genus Gymnogeohagus Ribeiro, 1918, with description of Two New Species (Pisces, Perciformes by R. E. Reis and L. R. Malabarba.
These two new species was Gymnogeophagus meridionalis sp.n. and Gymnogeophagus lacustris sp.n. This did not change much because I did not have the fish any longer, but I order the paper just to be update. So if you are interested in the paper, order it.
The Gymnogeophagus rhabdotus and Gymnogeophagus cf. "meridionalis". are substrat breeders, they spawn on a flat stone or a vertically rock,both clean the chosen rock and a couple of days before they spawne you can see egglaying tube on the female. After the spawning both clean the egg, and guard the territory. After about four days, the egg hatch, and there might be some variation depending on the temperature. But they pick up the newly hatchet fry and spit them in to a hollow they have prepaed in the sand for the fry.
Sometimes the pair start to quarrel, the female chase the male away or opposed. If the fish are kept alone, the male seem to disturb the female, because he has nothing to do, like defending the territory against intruders. So they might start a fight and they eat the fry or the eggs. I usually keep a small lamp lighted on the aquarium when the female is guarding frys, so when the mainlight is turned off by a clock, there will still be some light so the female can keep all the frys together in the hollow for the night, and she can also defend the frys against other fish that is out in the night searching for food. Like some catfishes or like.
After about four or five weeks she start loosing interest in guarding the frys and are usually ready to spawne again.
Gymnogeophagus gymnogenys, (Hensel, 1870)
Gymnogeophagus gymnogenys, a young male. Photo: Alf Stalsberg
The next one of the Gymnogeophagus want to tell you about is G. gymnogenys, I was so lucky to get this fish and the G. labiatus from a German friend of mine, namely Thomas Shultz, he is Captain in the German Air Company, Lufthansa. This gives him the opportunity to travel a "little" and lucky for me. He got G. pellegrini from me and I got Gymnogeophagus from him. This was long before I had seen any of these fishes here in Scandinavia. The Gymnogeophagus gymnogenys had been collected in a muddy pond with a lot of leeches, not so far away from a town called Santo Antonio de Patrulha.
The town is about 100 km. east of Porto Alegre in southern Brazil (See the map, red dot is Porto Alegre). I have not been able to find this place on my map, but it's probably not the best map of Brazil.There were also a lot of other fishes there too, Crenicichla punctulata,"Geophagus" brasiliensis and Gymnogeophagus rhabdotus? The pond had a little outlet that run into a nearby river about 500 meter away. The name was (if I rememder right) something like Rio dos Suinos? There they did collect Crenicichla punctulata, Gymnogeophaus labiatus, but no Gymnogeophagus gymnogenys or G. rhabdotus.
The river was different ecological, it was not very deep, but very rocky, which made is very difficult to collect the, Gymnogeophagus labiatus, they could easily hide under the rocks. They found a place where the rock were moved so cars could passed the river, and there it was easy to use the seine net, so we collect about 30 Gymnogeophagus labiatus, in one sweep.
They also try to collect close to Porto Alegre on in Guaiba, there had Roberto Reis collect both species before, they only manage to collect Gymnogeophagus gymnogenys, this is a delta area for many rivers and the biggest one is Rio Jacui. In Guaiba the Gymnogeophagus gymnogenys were rather large but had a drab color, in the pond at Santo Antonio de Patrulha the fish were smaller but verycolorful. They did also collect along the Highway No. 116, where they collect Gymnogeophagus gymnogenys and also G. rhabdotus. The Highway 116 is going south between Porto Alegre and Pelotas.
When the fish Gymnogeophagus gymnogenys I got from Thomas grow up, the male was very colorful, the photo I've used is a young male, but still he is beautiful. When they spawne I just notice it of the behavior on the fish, but I could not see where the female had the eggs, they had spawn on the bottom sand, but where. I could not see anything, because the female is not standing above the eggs like many cichlids do, she is standing a little distance away, so I could not tell where.
But, the female took up the fry in the mouth when they hatch and carry them until they were ready for the first swimming trip. Everything went well, but there was not many frys, I think it was 6, but I was still glad, they had spawne and I got some fry. I should not sell the fish, so six fry were ok, it was enough for me. Later the amount of fry were higher.
Now to the last one so far, namely Gymnogeophagus labiatus, I have some small Gymnogophagus setequedas, but no photo yet, and I have maybe another new Gymnogeophagus collected in Uruguay. But, I will add this to the page later.
As you have read, the fish was collected many places together with Gymnogeophagus gymnogenys. The fish has a slender body, and it does not belong to the most colorful Gymnogeopgus, but color is not everything, his behavior are more interesting than colors, but colors is not a drawback.
The fish grew up and if you click at the photo you will see he got fleshy lips, but I've heard they can be much bigger. When the fish spawne for the first time they did it on a small piece of wood, the amount of egg was not too many, and I think the first spawne was 25 fry. It was enough so I had some I could swap with others. I hope that what I have written here about the Gymnogeophagus,shall intrigue your interest for these fishes. I know they are hard to come by, but never give up the hope.
A male of Gymnogeophagus labiatus. Photo: Alf Stalsberg.
After this was written, there have been a change, the Gymnogeophagus has become very popular and there is now "many" people keeping these fish. They have also been imported in larger quantity, and many new ones. Idon't think that all of the new fish is new, but local variant with local variation, but beautiful fish and I hope I can bring pictures of the fish later.
You are welcome to take contact if you have any question, then I will try to help you. Hope you liked the page.
You can reach me by e-mail at:alf.stalsberg@c2i.net