Naturally Jaguars come from Lake Managua, Lake Nicaragua (Nicaragua), Matina River (Honduras) , and Ulua River (Costa Rica), and likely more.

as far as how the biotope is set up, it depends on which of the biotopes you choose, I'll cover the lake set-up, as they are the most simplistic.

1) Rocks, there are barely if any plantation in the lake, it's all rocks, with the occasional piece of driftwood (I would be inclined to throw a couple pieces of Manzanita in there.

2) Neutral-Alkaline water, a pH of 7-8.6 should be maintained in ideal conditions.

3) For substrate, I prefer the Pool Filter sand with pebbles/stones mixed in, what the substrate is like depends on where in the river and how deep you go. But keep in mind that the average depth of lake Nicaragua is only 13 meters, not very deep.

Keep in mind I have never been there to see it with my own eyes, and the information is sumed up from what I have been reading for the past few years about these lakes.

 

Oh yes, other cichlids from Lake Nicaragua, these are the species that I have read come from the Lake:

Hypsophrys nicaraguensis
Amatitlania nigrofasciatus
Neetroplus nematopus
Cryptoheros spilurus
Archocentrus multispinosis
Archocentrus centrarchus
Vieja maculicauda
Parachromis dovii
Parachromis loisellei
Parachromis managuense
Amphilophus citrinellum
Amphilophus labiatus
Astatheros longimanus
Astatheros rostratum

 

Great stuff Gage thanks....

I was wondering why do Jaguars and some of the Parachromis cichlids have such huge mouths and why are they up-turned?

 

Jaguars have a very large mouth for a few reasons, mainly to eat fish. The mouth when fully extended is like a tube, and will create a vacuum when opened quickly, and will suck small fish in. And i DO mean quickly, when I fed feeders (used to, stopped for health reasons), they would be gone before they knew what was going on.