The effect of different lipid levels (10, 15, 20 and 25%) and oil sources (fish oil: FO and soybean lecithin oil: LO) on growth, survival, digestive enzymatic activity, gene expression acetyl CoA carboxylase (ACC1) and fatty acid synthase (FAS) of Mayan cichlid larvae Cichlasoma urophthalmus were evaluated by a bi-factorial design. The larvae were fed from hatching with eight different experimental isoproteic diets (45% protein) and a commercial diet for tilapia as a control diet. The results showed that larvae fed the LO15 diet had the highest growth in weight and total length and higher trypsin activity. The lowest values in FAS and ACC1 expression were obtained exclusively with the lipid type (soybean lecithin). It is concluded that the inclusion of soybean lecithin at a concentration of 15% allows the 100% replacement of fish oil in balanced feed for the culture of Mayan cichlid larvae.