New Fry: Laetacara araguaiae (Purple Smilers)

Here's our recent batch of Purple Smiler fry! We've been working with Purple Smilers since we bought 6x at the PVAS Club Auction in March. Purple Smilers (Laetacara araguaiae - previously known as Buckelkopf Cichlids) are small Amazon cichlids that turn brilliant purple when in spawning mode. Ours began to lay eggs here and there by April-May, but one pair eventually became dominant over the others. We sold the other 4x to our LFS, and began to work with getting our remaining pair to spawn. We added rainwater at water changes - ca. 4 gallons at a time, added leaf litter - Oak and Almond leaves, added alder cones - which grow near us in the wild, fed quality foods - live, frozen, etc - and watched them lay eggs . . . and devour them over, and over, and over. So, like with other cichlids, we've decided to pull eggs. If this is a success, we'll prepare a BAP video journal to share. Two things we're doing a bit differently here: (1) Adding aged / decomposed almond leaf litter and Alder cones to the hatching container for botanicals and bio-film, etc (2) We're feeding these early on with Vinegar Eels, since they are too small for baby brine shrimp at first.