Uaru amphiacanthoides, the neglected Amazonian Uaru

Uaru amphiacanthoides (Uaru). I kept about six of these in a densely-planted 30g. tank for several years in the 1980s. They aren't often seen at the LFS, because they aren't easily bred (though they were easy enough to keep in good health in my soft water) and they lack drama. No one has specialized in Uaru, I imagine. Uaru are voracious greens eaters. They will decimate any plant in their aquarium. They need constant veggies.
 
This Uaru is one of two species: the other is the somewhat smaller U. fernandezypezi, published in 1989. Neither is often exported. There's little call for them at our end, and at home  U. amphiacanthoides, athough not its cousin, are a common food fish all over their wide range in the Amazon and its tributaries: Rios Madeira, Xingu, Negro, Blanco, Tocantins and Cupari.
 
Links. Uaru amphiacanthoides at FishBase. Some Uaru posts are archived at The Krib. Jim Stigliano wrote a brief informative report on Uaru for the Greater Chicago Cichlid Association website where Uaru was cichlid-of-the-month, Feb 200.; there's a fine portrait of a breeding pair with their mottled month-old fry. Cynthia Teague and Dean Hougen of the South American Cichlid Study Group offer a chattier and more detailed account of pair formation among six Uaru that led to spawnings in a 125-gal tank that they shared with some geophagine cichlids and the fry-snatching little pike cichlid Crenicara compressiceps at the SACSG website hosted by Petsforum. Dean Hougen included three species of Uaru in a brief report on the taxonomy of the Acara-like group of cichlids, in the May/June 1994 issue of Minnesota Aquarium Society's Aquazine. More Uaru gossip and an unexpected spawning are in Brad Swanson's article, "P is for persistence" also in M.A.S. Aquazine, Jan/Feb 2000. There were feature articles on Uaru in Aquarium Fish, June 1992 pp. 5-6 and in December 1992 pp. 60-63