Many will have many problems when they want to understand the specific type of cichlid that they are facing. This is mainly as we are faced with a lot of possible species that offer different temperaments and appearance. Even the feeding patterns noticed are different. Also, occasionally fish stores will offer inaccurate information and this can make everything even harder to understand. Although it can be really hard to sometimes identify cichlid types we can give you a number of useful tips that you can use. Let us take a look at what you can expect.
Appearance should be a very important factor in categorizing cichlid fish. A scientific analysis is a bad approach and the correct one is thinking about this fish as a hobby fish. Categories mentioned below are created basd mostly on the use of physical appearance traits and are used to properly identify cichlids species. You can always find additional information so that you know what fish you are in front of. Four main cichlid fish types can be mentioned from this point of view: African, Neotropical, Madagascar and Asian.
You will need to first place your cichlid in a group before making a more accurate identification. Madagascar cichlids are definitely rare and it is more than likely that you may never see one in any supermarket. Asian cichlids are usually some oddball fish. 3 main species exist in Sri Lanka and India in the Etroplus genus. The most common one is the orange chromide, the Etroplus maculates. It is quite small at just 2 inches and can be bred easily. We should also mention the etroplus suratensis (commonly known as green chromide) and the rarest one, Etroplus canarensis.
Although there are roughly around one thousand five hundred species we can still mention a number of guidelines that can show you what you are dealing with. Sometimes you will need the help of books or the Internet but the most common species can easily be identified. We have 5 big types of neotropical cichlids: eartheater cichlids, cichlasoma-like cichlids, apistogramma-like cichlids and pike cichlids. African cichlid variations are: Lake Malawi cichlids, West African dwarf cichlids, Lake Victoria cichlids, Lake Tanganyikan cichlids and other cichlids.