Red Devil

[alitheia_agapi]

I've read some pretty interesting things about red devils, how aggressive they are, but also how intelligent and funny. Does anyone own one? How difficult are they to care for?

 

[thecichlidaddict]

They are kind of like a nicer, more aggressive Oscar.

They are very hardy and easy to keep, but very messy - love to eat and love to poop. They also rearrange the tank as they see fit. They are certainly among the 'smartest' fish available and quite fun to own. They need a lot of room, and you'll have a hard time keeping more then one in anything less then 100 gallons, I wouldn't keep one in less then 60 or so gallons.

 

[wuvmybetta]

I have what we found out to be a devil midas cross, he's awesome. I love him! He's a brute and moves everything around,he tries to attack my kid/dog/and rabbit through the glass when they walk by his tank (as if he'd know what to do when he got ahold of one of them )

He seems very intelligent, I can tell that he KNOWS what food I have in my hand when I come over to the tank...gets excited if he sees the cup with bloodworms or his favorite pellet or anything else...but he zooms away if I try to give him the cichlid sticks in the bright orange container,go figure

I'd say he's the easiest fish to care for as far as maintaining his tank goes,because he digs so much, he's constantly turning the gravel over which pretty much makes thorough gravel vacuuming obsolete.

But,as mentioned, they're aggressive

 

[smb]

I've had around 250-300 of them since I've been keeping fish. The labiatus and citrinellus are my favs.

labiatus are extremely aggro and, imo, the most owner interactive fish there is along with an Oscar.

I've had many labiatus that would jump out of the tank at me to bite me when I would open the top to feed them. They attack the glass when anyone other than the one who feeds them walks by, includng dogs. They absolutely LOVE the person who feeds them and can differentialize who that is from as far away as 10 ft. from the tank. If it's the one who feeds then they swim up to the top and want to be fed, petted and played with but if it's anyone else they bang the glass to try and get at them.

These are just generalizations but I would say most labiatus are like this. I highly recommend them.