Whats not to love? They get big , are suitable tankmates for just about any SA , are as personable as Oscars (and not nearly as ugly or co-dependant), are strikingly different in pattern as adults vs juvie , if you can track down some orange morph they can have some nice color. Really they are one of those fish that untill you've kept them are a little hard to explain what makes them so cool. Trust me , if you get some (and that's prefered since they like to be in groups or at the least pairs) you'll understand :wink: .

 

What is a UARU?

 

These

Here's a link to the species profile http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/species.php?id=627

 

Why does anyone want anything? :lol:

Pretty, peaceful, and personable.

-Ryan

 

I'm of mixed opinion on Uarus. I had 2 and now have 1. My mated pair had a spat and one harassed the other to the point that I had to euthanize one, even though I tried separating them with egg crate.

From my experience of having 2 for over 4 years, they are usually very peaceful and personable, but get extremely large and will eat anything that is green. I just don't think that you get as much bang for your buck as Severums or Angelfish when it comes to interesting cichlid behavior.

Mike

 

I'm of mixed opinion on Uarus. I had 2 and now have 1. My mated pair had a spat and one harassed the other to the point that I had to euthanize one, even though I tried separating them with egg crate.

From my experience of having 2 for over 4 years, they are usually very peaceful and personable, but get extremely large and will eat anything that is green. I just don't think that you get as much bang for your buck as Severums or Angelfish when it comes to interesting cichlid behavior.

Mike

Since when did angels have interesting behavior? Their as interesting as a tetra doing laps in a community tank. Severums on the other hand....Gotta love them. Uaru *** wanted to try but never had the oppurtunity when I had the space for them. I love the color.

 

Ok - I take back the Angels.

 

I'm of mixed opinion on Uarus. I had 2 and now have 1. My mated pair had a spat and one harassed the other to the point that I had to euthanize one, even though I tried separating them with egg crate.

From my experience of having 2 for over 4 years, they are usually very peaceful and personable, but get extremely large and will eat anything that is green. I just don't think that you get as much bang for your buck as Severums or Angelfish when it comes to interesting cichlid behavior.

Mike

Since when did angels have interesting behavior? Their as interesting as a tetra doing laps in a community tank. Severums on the other hand....Gotta love them. Uaru I've wanted to try but never had the oppurtunity when I had the space for them. I love the color.

I share this sentiment about discus, but not angels. I actually do find them quite interesting and surprisingly nasty. It never fails to amaze me when a fish that fights so much with EVERYTHING can keep such perfect looking finnage. But then I have been known to be easily amused every now and again.

As for the uaru question, I have been wondering myself. I've never seen many of them locally and recently found some very young ones at a very reasonable price and was contemplating getting some but am hesitant since watching them at the shop failed to overwhelm me with the gutwrenching need to have them.

 

I'm looking to find a new home for my remaining Uaru since they do not do well when kept singly. Anyone living in the NYC area can have him gratis.

Mike

 

I have to agree with straightjacketstar about the angels, especially with regards to wild angels. Most are fiestier than domestic sev's even.

Have yet to keep uaru though, never had a tank big enough for a group of 10-12" fish.

 

12"s in the wild 8-10" average in aquariums, groups of them should be 2 or more apparently which isn't really so demanding. They need good water but so do Geo's and they can be kept with them safely so that kinda rocks. A group of Geo's are just as large too so it'd be a cool looking tank.

Do you think they'd eat L. Dorsigera's up like little snacks?

There's a LFS in the area with 2" Uaru's at $11.99... they're going fast though!

(They've also got 2" peacock bass for $9.99 :drooling: But I'm not tank space ready for those yet.. but I'd like to be)

Keep convincing me (and everyone else) as to what's so grreat about Uaru's though... this threads getting some good response.

More Pics!! opcorn:

 

The good thing about Uarus is that you could probably keep them with guppies with no problem. They are also fairly intelligent in that they notice anything new in the tank.

The bad thing is that they eat plants

 

I just saw little 1.5" Uaru's with the Orange Morph at another LFS for 14.99... suddenly I'm seeing these guys around.. Maybe it's a sign

 

I had one for years as a wet pet. He grew to nearly a foot, ate lettuce from my fingers, wanted to be petted when I was doing water changes... great interactive, intelligent fish.

Not the most colorful fish, although I like the big red eye...but really cool fish.

He shared a 55g with some livebearers that I though he might like as a snack...but wouldn't eat (so they reproduced). Probably had him for 8 years.

 

2 years ago I was at the baltimore aquarium and they had a couple(uaru's) in there south american display. they were huge ! football sized,they were really cool looking fish I watched them for awhile.They had really dark almost evil looking red-orange eyes.great looking cichlids.

 

There's a LFS in the area with 2" Uaru's at $11.99... they're going fast though!

Sigh! I dream for those prices in our LFS's. I haven't seen Uaru's for sale in years down here, now two LFS have them for sale. They are between 3 and 4 inches TL, one store has them for $60ea and the other has them for $80 ea.

 

They are a fish that you have to try! I started with four two inch w/c juvies, brightly splashed with blue spots, I was sold (I'm a sucker for big dopey sa's). brought them home and tossed them in with some small Geos, Satanoperca and small Creni's. They very quickly outgrew the 70, I had to move them to a 150, with some 8-9" Creni. sp. "Venezuela" - I wasn't to happy, but, they needed the room to grow! I was pleasantly surprised to see the Uaru proceed to beat on the Venz for about 20 minutes, after the beating, all the fish got along perfectly, the pecking order seemingly set in stone. Once completely settled, the four fish started to pair off, turns out that they were two males and two females - what luck! They began spawning less than a year after I brought them home with me at about 7" total length, their spawns were every week, one pair on Monday and the other on Wednesday, I never did raise one fry, my water is much too hard and the eggs were never fertile.

In the end, I still regret getting rid of them, the guy I gave them to raised the first spawn he got from them (they missed a week in the cycle but got back on track the next) and flooded Winnipeg with Uaru fry! They are capable of holding their own with any tankmates that you throw at them, they eat EVERYTHING and are not any more demanding for water quality than any other SA cichlids and the personality is second to none among cichlids.

Thanks for reading, hope it wasn't too boring :lol:

 

boring??! No way, that's the kinda stuff I want to hear..

Lay it on me folks, Whats so great about Uaru?

THIS THREAD NEEDS MORE PICS!!! opcorn:

 

Well here's a link to a few pics:

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forum ... p?t=220196

I got mine as a throw-in with a satanoperca sp Red Lip. They were friends in the tank I got them from but she wasn't going to work in my SA tank because it was planted (next week I move and will set up a 260 or 415 for peaceful South Americans and it is going to be Awesome). So I put her into my monster tank, wondering how she'd fare with the big dickish distichodus lussoso.

She had an immediate calming effect on the tank and without ever attacking him completely dominated him. She just floats around slowly and gracefully, is super friendly, eats from my hand, and scares the **** out of a 14" fish (he has now focused his aggression on the bala sharks though, which is not so good - but they'll all get whichever of the 360 and 415 I don't use for the SAs so that'll help). I can't imagine there'll be any difficulty getting her reacquainted with the more appropriate region fish once I move.

I just wonder how many more I can safely get - she does great on her own, and had a mate (the guy sold the male separately, sadly), but I hear that they don't do well in smaller groups of 2 or 3.

I can actually get a fairly large orange variant locally but the last thing I need is to get that and have my current one beat the **** out of it.

But in general this throw-in fish has become one of my favorites.

 

I read just the opposite in fact, that they should be kept in groups of 2 or more... Gonna check out those pics now I love MFK....

 

Me too. So cool that they host images for me too.

I forgot to note that to answer a question on the first page, at roughly 7", mine could not eat a full grown l. dorsigera. Wouldn't fit in her mouth. And in fact, depending on whether I decide to keep the silver arowanas in the tank with the eartheaters (which prevents me from keeping the juvenile eartheaters til they grow up), I was planning to keep them in the same tank together.

 

I had good luck keeping a single Uaru as a wet pet. Groups are interesting but not necessary.

Mine wouldn't eat fish that would fit into his mouth. He simply wasn't interested...

Lettuce on the other hand they're all over...

 

Try potato(e) - it's like watching them play keep-away! It is really impressive what those teeth are capable of.

Ray

 

Try frozen corn kernels. My Festivum and Uaru have a corn eating contest.

Mike

 

Poor man's discus - easier to keep, just about the same temprement (closer to severum in my opinion) and they look a lot better in person than you'll see in any pictures.

Uaru F. are especially nice if you can afford em'.