It seems that the Rio Negro in the northern portion of South America will never stop giving us really nifty fish. The Rio Negro, the black-water river where pH is sometimes less than 5 has now given us a species that is still rather new to the hobby and is only occasionally seen in the aquarium hobby. The Nannacara adoketa (Kullander 1993) is one of the newest aquarium fish to come out of the forests of Northern South America. I was really happy when I received my fish from Peter Liptrott of the Bolton Museum in England. I had heard of the Nannacara adoketa but had not been able to find any of this new cichlid. What a bargain and what a great addition these fish were to my growing collection of dwarf cichlids.

The Nannacara adoketa I started with was a trio of 1 male 2 females. The set up was a 24”x15”x12” size tank (ed: about 20 gallons) and it contained 2 large pots standing with holes in center and 2 medium pots laying on there side with holes at the rear. I like a lot of hiding places in my tanks oak leaves were scattered around the bare bottom of the tank. There was a small filter with peat put in to help lower the hardness and there was also a small power filter to be sure the tank would be really clean. The temperature I set at 80 with the pH being set to 5 and the dh of about 1.

A couple of days after introducing the trio it was observed the females were sparring with each other and on close contact would lock-jaw a very, very frightening “dance” to watch and I had to eventually had to intervene a couple of times so I then decided to remove one of the females so as to spare loosing a very nifty fish.

I chose to remove the less dominate female and two days later the remaining pair were showing off to each other in typical cichlid form. As they passed each other the dorsal fin would ripple in a quivering sort of way. The female would then go from pot to pot with the male following and it was very interesting to watch as they were seemingly looking for a “new home”. It was now noticed that their spawning tubes were protruding and all seemed just fine. Finally she chose a pot that was lying down on the bottom of the tank and the spawning the proceeded.

The actual spawning was very slow and deliberate. The female would lay a few eggs and then go out of the back of the pot as though to indicate to the male that it was now his turn. This was followed by the male then fertilizing the eggs as he of course should. He then went out through the hole in the pot and it quiet seemed like it was like watching a game of “here we go around the mulberry bush”. This procedure went on until she had exhausted all her eggs. I decided to leave the eggs with the protecting “mother” until the next day. I then decided removed the pot containing the eggs as a first spawn and I put the pot into a 16”x 8”x8” (Ed: about 4-5 gallons). The fry tank was filled with water from the spawning tank and I put in a sponge filter so that the flow of water was blowing across the eggs.

eggs at 36 hours

The eggs were observed closely right up to the hatching which was in 4 days. It was another 4 days before free swimming but I then had about70 fry came through the whole ordeal. Baby brine Shrimp was taken right away by the fry and the raising of the young "chameleons" was pretty easy at that point.

fry at 7.75 days fry at 9.6 days

I would like thank PETER LIPTROTT of the Bolton Museum for supplying me with theses fish. If any one ever gets the chance to obtain these beautiful fish I think it is well worth the effort. Go for it and you will be enchanted by their mood changes and wonderful color changes of these “chameleon” of fishes.

Second spawn and the eggs were left with the pair.

Ed. note: Ray said the camera he used is a Fuji 2800 set on zoom and fine pix and the macro was also on. The exposure vary +0.6 to +1.5 and the white balance set to daylight/florescence. The forced flash was on and the focus was manual.