As what the name implies, the Jaguar Fish is one of the most notorious highly temperamental types of cichlids that often attack other community tank mates. Because of its territorial behavior, it is often kept confide within its own species and unless if you have a very large tank, you could use a “trial and observe” approach to check out whether the new tank mates will be able to fend for itself living with the fish. Most pet jaguar fish hobbyist will often mix it together with other fish species such as Oscar since both are cichlids that are native to the South American river, but however, they will often end up in a fight whereby one will get injured and died.Jaguar cichlids is a natural predator in the wild and because of this trait, even when the fish are mostly bred and raise in a tank confinement, they will still require high protein meaty food to survive. Usually chucks of discarded chicken meat are a top choice among jaguar fish breeders and it is also common to see people using krill and bloodworms as alternative food source. Some hobbyist will even try to train and confine the diet solely to fish pellets, but however, this doesn’t produce good results for your pet as the jaguar fish will often reject the food offering and even if it does eat, the diet will not offer any benefit towards proper growth. Jaguar cichlids fed solely using fish pellets will often become stunted and the coloration will not be as bright as those offered daily supply of meaty foods.
About Proper Care & Growth Rate
When properly cared for, your jaguar pet can grow extremely fast. There are reports saying that one inch of additional length per month is possible and somehow, I’m not surprised if it can achieve beyond the mentioned growth rate. A normal adult jaguar fish is usually 15 inches in size and with body thickness reaching almost 2 inches; it is indeed a hefty pet to take care of. The species is also a very intelligent pet fish, and if you raise the fish from a young stock, it can grow to identify the owner who feeds and take care of them. I would suggest if you are keen on adopting this fish, to first prepare a huge tank (at least 120 gallons and above) and then conduct further research to find out which tank mates it can live with. So far, my choice of different cichlids fish such as oscar did not work out well but Apistogramma (dwarf cichlids), Blue Acara, Firemouth and Jack Dempsey might be fine. It still goes back to the “test the water” approach.
