Q. I have been keeping tropical fish for five years, and would like to try cichlids. I have a 10-gallon aquarium I want to set up to house the cichlids. Do you have any recommendations for what fish to start out with? I plan on using a mini bio-wheel type filter for this tank. Will this provide enough filtration? Finally, what type of live plants do these fish need? Any information you can supply will be greatly appreciated.

A. While it is possible to successfully keep and breed a number of cichlids in a 10-gallon tank, I would feel somewhat more confident of your venture's happy outcome were you to start your career as a cichlid keeper with at least a 15-gallon aquarium. That additional 5 gallons of water makes it much easier to maintain a stable, viable environment for the tank's residents, while its greater bottom area simplifies the task of managing cichlid territoriality. Likewise, while the Marineland Bio-Wheel line of filters does an excellent job of maintaining water quality in a home aquarium, I strongly recommend that you move up to the smallest available model of their Emperor series. These trouble-free, spray bar-driven units can easily manage the substantial waste load produced by even quite small cichlids.

Several genera of New World cichlids are small enough to live and breed in a 10- to 15-gallon aquarium. The species most likely to forgive a beginner's inevitable slipups are the dwarf smiling acaras of the genus Laetacara. The two species of dwarf smiling acara you are most apt to find at your local retail shop are Laetacara curviceps, a species native to the eastern Amazon basin that goes by the common name of sheepshead acara in some older reference works, and its counterpart from the Rio Parana basin, Laetacara dorsigera. The smallest known representatives of the genus, males of these two species attain a maximum size of 3 inches total length.

The behavior of sexually inactive individuals toward smaller non-cichlid tankmates is quite inoffensive, and even breeding fish pose no threat to rooted plants. Both species are easily fed, accepting a wide range or prepared and frozen foods.

The two species differ somewhat in their maintenance requirements. Like the generality of Amazon fishes, L. curviceps prefers soft (to 5 degrees total hardness and carbonate hardness), neutral to slightly acid water. A pH range of 6.0 to 7.2 suits it quite well. While it can tolerate temperatures as low as 68 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature range of 74 to 80 degrees is recommended for day to day maintenance, with an increase to 86 degrees for breeding.

Because the southward flowing Rio Parana passes through the subtropics over much of its length, its fishes tend to be somewhat more resistant to lower temperatures than their Amazonian counterparts. Thus, L. dorsigera can tolerate brief drops to temperatures as low as 57 degrees, but it does best over a range of 70 to 76 degrees under normal circumstances, with an increase to 80 to 82 degrees for breeding. This species also tolerates harder, more alkaline conditions than does its Amazonian cousin, and will breed in water with a pH as high as 7.8 and a hardness of 20 degrees. This may explain why L. dorsigera does quite well when cultured in ponds in Florida, whereas most of the L. curviceps on the market are bred in Southeast Asia.

Both of these dwarf smiling acara species are substrate spawners, with both parents sharing more or less equally in the care and defense of the eggs and fry. The easiest way to secure a compatible couple is to rear half a dozen juveniles to maturity in the same tank and allow them to pair up naturally. However, a single male and female can also usually be counted on to pair up in a community setting.

The sexes are rather easily distinguished. Males are slightly larger and have longer, somewhat more pointed soft dorsal and anal fins than do females. The ladies, for their part, usually sport a single, light-bordered, more or less rectangular black blotch in the spiny dorsal fin.

The fish deposit a circular plaque of small, translucent beige eggs on a flat, solid surface that has been scrupulously cleaned beforehand. A young pair may eat its first clutch or two of eggs, but as a rule, dwarf smiling acaras quickly settle down to become model cichlid parents. Both parents take turns fanning the eggs and defending the boundaries of the pair's territory. The eggs hatch 60 to 72 hours post-spawning, and the fry are free-swimming three to four days later, depending upon water temperature. They can take brine shrimp (Artemia) nauplii and finely powdered prepared food for their initial meal. The adults become notably more aggressive toward their tankmates once the fry are mobile, which is a very good reason for housing the breeders in a 15- rather than a 10-gallon aquarium.

As long as the breeding tank benefits from a program of frequent partial water changes, rearing the fry poses no particular problems. Parental care in captivity can persist for up to eight weeks, but it is prudent to separate parents and progeny prior to this point. As the female ripens a new batch of eggs, the pair's interest in their brood drops off. Indifference can quickly change to outright hostility once the pair begins to prepare a new spawning site. The young grow fairly rapidly, and usually attain sexual maturity eight to 10 months after spawning.