Severum looks almost similar like the other blood parrot cichlids except that the front forehead is much rounder and overall body shape appears to be flatter. It is widely kept as a pet fish in home aquariums and it is normally housed in a tank whereby it is the only single species present. The name severum although implies that it might be a friendly peaceful looking fish companion, however, its general behavior seems to suggest otherwise.In today’s aquarium trade, severum can be found in different colors due to heavy crossbreeding with other cichlids although the exact parentage has yet to be confirmed and traced. Wild caught severum fish that originates from the Amazon River is often blackish in color and it has several vertical gray bands that cut across its body. Normally they can be found as orange, gold, green or even pink colored fish while I have also come across the yellow variant albeit it is very much rare. Some hobbyist even claim that there is the albino type but personally, I’ve never come across one of those.
Care for your pet severum can be rated as fairly easy to moderately challenging because the fish can easily adapt to new tank water changes. In order to ensure that they stay healthy, it is best that the water hardness should be maintained in the range of 4 to 6 dGH which is fairly soft water condition. In terms of temperature requirement, the water must be within the limit of 25 to 28 deg Celsius similar to the tropical climate condition from where they belong. For the pH, it is best to control at the neutral pH region and avoids sudden fluctuation especially when conducting water changes.
The tank size setup to raise your severum fish should be as large as possible, with the minimum capacity measuring at least 50 gallons. It is better to control and limit the number of fish and a good rule of thumb is to allocate 20 gallons of water for every severum you intend to keep. The reason for this is because the fish can turn aggressive towards each other during the breeding season and if you have an established community of aquarium plants, your pets will dig everything up and make a whole mess of it. Once a severum pair is formed (which unfortunately to say, is a very complicated process), they can release and raise a number of broods which totals about few hundreds to few thousands young severums.
Other types of cichlids: Oscar, Blue Acara, Mbuna, Tilapia
Fancy yellow color cichlids fish? Then consider African Lemon Yellow
