Flowerhorn Cichlid

About

Three facts come first, because everything else on this page rests on them. It has no wild form - Wikipedia puts it in one line: "Like blood parrot cichlids, they are hybrids that exist in the wild only because of their release." It has no valid scientific name; aqua-fish.net states plainly that it "does not have an official scientific name", and this entry does not invent one. And it has no natural range, so a distribution map for it is a map of escapees. What it has instead is a parentage, and the parentage is contested and almost certainly varies from line to line. Wikipedia's account is that "Flowerhorn breeding dates to 1993" and that "By 1994, red devil cichlids (typically Amphilophus labiatus) and trimac cichlids (A. trimaculatus) had been imported from Central America to Malaysia and the hybrid blood parrot cichlid had been imported from Taiwan to Malaysia. These fish were then bred together, marking the birth of the flowerhorn" - a passage Wikipedia itself flags as disputed and partly uncited. Practical Fishkeeping's version is looser and probably closer to what happened on the farms: it "originated from crossing the Trimac cichlid with a whole host of other Central American cichlid species and seeing what came out". A 2023 DNA-barcoding study in the Journal of Tropical Biodiversity and Biotechnology sequenced six morphotypes - Cencu, Kamfa, Thai Silk, Kirin, Parrot and Vieja - and found that "all sample had 0% genetic divergence and conspecific with A. trimaculatus sequence"; its authors name Amphilophus citrinellus, A. labiatus, Vieja melanurus and A. trimaculatus as the species generally crossed to make the fish. COI is a mitochondrial marker and therefore traces the maternal line, so that result identifies the mothers rather than settling the whole pedigree. The lump on the forehead is a nuchal hump, the "kok" of the trade, and it is the thing the fish is bred for; Practical Fishkeeping's judgement is that the humps "are getting seriously large - too large". The same article lists the rest of the bill: "short bodied fish are also being favoured (which are missing vertebrae), but the unluckiest of all get their tails chopped off with no anaesthetic", and its separate entry on balloon fish generally adds that such fish "are missing vertebrae so are at a skeletal disadvantage when compared to their more able-bodied tank mates". Wikipedia records that breeding "resulted in culling of surplus and deformed fish", that some hybrids are sold tattooed and that hormones have been used on colour, and that "The majority of flowerhorn males are sterile", so a breeder waits 8-10 months on a male only to find out whether it works. Against all of that, the animal itself is a large, vividly coloured, intensely interactive cichlid, which is why people keep it. Two things follow from its being a hybrid rather than a species. Released fish became "an invasive pest animal" in Singapore and Malaysia, where they compete with and eat native fish, and Australia bans their importation - so it never goes into open water, not even a garden pond. And because it is not a species, it should never be sold, swapped or recorded as one.

Care

One fish, one tank. Aquadiction's own summary line is "Best kept as Loners", and size is the reason: it puts the approximate maximum at 40.5 cm, aqua-fish.net at 24-28 cm, and the trimac parent reaches 36.5 cm SL on FishBase - so plan for a 30-40 cm adult, not the 8 cm fish in the bag. Give it at least 450 L over a 150 cm base, which is the same footprint our red devil entry asks for, and the red devil is one of the parents those contested accounts name. Sand, heavy immovable rockwork arranged to break sight lines, powerful filtration, large water changes. It eats plants, so a planted tank is not on the table. Warm and slightly alkaline: Aquadiction gives 26-31 °C, pH 6.5-8.0 and GH 9-20; aqua-fish.net 25-30 °C and pH 7.0-7.5. Keep a lid on it. If you are choosing a fish rather than inheriting one, choose a standard body: Practical Fishkeeping records that short-bodied flowerhorns "are missing vertebrae", and says of short-bodied fish in general that they are "at a skeletal disadvantage when compared to their more able-bodied tank mates". Aquadiction also warns that a flowerhorn bites hard enough to mark human skin, so keep hands out at maintenance time.

Diet

Big appetite, omnivorous with a carnivorous lean. A quality cichlid pellet as the staple plus frozen or live bloodworm, krill, earthworm and prawn, with some greens; carotenoid-rich foods hold the red. Measured portions, no feeder fish.

Telling males from females

What works for this species, most reliable first.

• Extended finsStrong · from about 8 months, and later in a suppressed male

  On many cichlids and killifish the male's dorsal and anal fins draw out into trailing points as he matures, while the female's stay rounded.

• VentingA hint only · only on a mature fish, easiest when she is in breeding condition

  The method breeders use when the answer has to be right. Hold the fish upside down in a wet hand or soft net and look at the two openings ahead of the anal fin. The forward one is the anus; the one behind it is what you are reading.

• Adult sizeA hint only · only across animals of the same age

  In many cichlids, catfish and loaches one sex simply grows larger — usually the male, though there are well-known reversals.

Similar species

Same category and the closest water parameters — if this species isn't quite it, start here.

Sold in Lithuania

These Lithuanian shops listed this species in their public catalogue (checked August 8, 2026). Stock moves — ask before you travel.

These links are unpaid: we get nothing for them and ask for nothing.

Frequently asked questions

What tank size does a Flowerhorn Cichlid need?

A Flowerhorn Cichlid needs an aquarium of at least 450 litres (118.9 US gallons) with a footprint at least 150 cm (59.1 in) long — for this species, swimming length matters as much as raw volume.

What water parameters does a Flowerhorn Cichlid need?

Flowerhorn Cichlid does best at 24–30 °C (75.2–86 °F), pH 6.5–8 and a general hardness of 6–25 °dGH.

Is the Flowerhorn Cichlid suitable for beginners?

Flowerhorn Cichlid sits in the middle of the difficulty scale — manageable for a careful beginner who has done the reading, but it has specific needs worth researching first.

Sources

• Wikipedia — Flowerhorn cichlid
• Sari et al. (2023), Journal of Tropical Biodiversity and Biotechnology — Molecular Identification of Several Morphologically Distinct Flowerhorn Fish Using Mitochondrial COI Gene Marker
• Practical Fishkeeping — The 10 worst man made fish
• Aquadiction — Flowerhorn Cichlid
• aqua-fish.net — Complete Care Guide for Flowerhorn Cichlid
• FishBase — Amphilophus trimaculatus (Günther, 1867), a named parent species