Cichlidelicious

Hello Again Everyone,

Below is a thumbnail to an image of one of my female fish, who I call female #2, since I discovered her as being a female second. With her is Bully Boy, my dominant male:



Probably due to the flash of the camera, the light blue on her body is kind of washed out.

For some time now, I've been trying to properly identify my fish, and I have another theory regarding their identity, which I'd like to pass by everyone for your consideration and feedback.

When I first got my fish in April of this year, while I was trying to properly identify them, Melanochromis Auratus was one of the four species in my list. In fact, I just now looked again at an image of one in my Malawi Cichlids book, and I am wondering if my females might possibly be a cross between Melanochromis Cyaneorhabdos and Melanochromis Auratus; the reason being that my two females have a thin yellow edge on their dorsal fin, as well as a bit of yellow on the edge of their tails...and the male Melanochromis Auratus appears to have the same thing. Is it possible that I am on to something?

My males are definitely not Melanochromis Auratus though. I am still convinced that they are Melanochromis Cyaneorhabdos, or Melanochromis Johanni, or else a hybrid of one of those.

But the plot thickens.

Please check out the following page which, according to the author, are all images of Melanochromis Auratus. Go down about halfway, and look in the right column. There is an image of a fish with dark and light blue horizontal bars:

http://badmanstropicalfish.com/speci...s/auratus.html

The odd thing is, every other site I have visited refers to this fish -- the fish on the above page -- as Melanochromis Cyaneorhabdos, aka Maingano, which is what I believe I have...at least as far as my males are concerned. They all look pretty much like the fish on the above page, except somewhat different shades of blue. Likewise, other images of Melanochromis Cyaneorhabdos which I found on other sites, also seem to verify that this is what I have. Only Bully Boy, my dominant male, now looks drastically different, with his horizontal bars pretty much washed out due to intense mating colors...at least that is my personal theory.

If the author of that page is correct, and Melanochromis Auratus can also look like that, while others are a darker color with the yellow-edged dorsal and tail, then this might explain why my two females also have the thin yellow line on their dorsals, and on the edge of their tails.

So again, is it possible that my females are Melanochromis Johanni/Melanochromis Auratus or Melanochromis Cyaneorhabdos/Melanochromis Auratus hybrids?

Is it even possible that my males are also Melanochromis Auratus, and not really Melanochromis Cyaneorhabdos, or even Melanochromis Johanni?

Of course, the other possibility is that the author of that page made a mistake, and that one image should not be there.

After doing more research...

Well, it seems that the author of that page is correct with that image. I just found this sentence on another site regarding Melanochromis Auratus:

"Sometimes the yellow stripes are turquoise or blue depending on the location where the fish may be found."

So the candidates are still:

Melanochromis Johanni
Melanochromis Cyaneorhabdos
Melanochromis Auratus

So I'm still thinking that I've got one of these, or possibly a hybrid of two of the above.

What does everyone think?

Thanks!

zowie717

mabye these links will help, they have a drop down box you can check the different ages and male/female/juveniles etc.... she looks like melachromis cyaneohabdos...... http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profile...ies.php?id=756

Angela_96

Melanochromis Cyaneorhabdos is the id for them.
The yellow tips on the fins can be from breeding and breeding down. THe pictures you find in books/net are not going to be 100% what your fish is. By going from cichlid-forum and Ad Konings book I am saying Cyaneorhabados.

steve_58

check this out : http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profile...ies.php?id=755


possibly could be Melanochromis chipokae or a mix of such.the female is a more distinct yellow and black coloration.

Angela_96

its not a chipoke. look at the species closer as in the body and facial features. that plays a key roll in iding malawi cichlids.

steve_58

If they are Melanochromis Cyaneorhabdos they are poorly bred.In my oppinion they do have some hybridation in them.

Angela_96

Unless you buy them wild caught or know the breeder they are poorly bred. I haven't bought LFS fish or fish f rom someone I didn't know for that fact. For example the kenyi that petsmart has is very poorly bred, inbred... they have so many lines down their side and mix matched markings. Where the ones I keep and breed have 5 lines down their side, its a matter of quality vs quanity.

steve_58

I totally agree with that.

Cichlidelicious

Hello again everyone. Thanks for your additional comments. After exchanging messages with so many people on a variety of messageboards, it seems that the list of possible ID's for my five fish has expanded to the following:

Melanochromis Johanni
Melanochromis Cyaneorhabdos
Pseudotropheus Msobo
Pseudotropheus Elongatus

There may be one or two others that have been mentioned to me that I've missed in the above list. Whether or not my fish are a pure species of any of the above is debatable. Quite a few people have now suggested that they are probably hybrids.

Personally, after thinking this over for a while now, I've realized that perhaps my mistake has been to assume that they were all the same species of fish. I reasoned that they didn't all look the same simply due to different color variations of the same species, or due to sexual differences, but now I am not so certain.

In fact, the very fact that they were sold in a tank simply labeled as "Cichlids", certainly seems to add to the possibility that I actually have more than one species of cichlid which were all being sold in a mixed tank.

I've been hoping to take more pictures of my fish for everyone to see, but that has proven to be a bit difficult due to the time that they lurk in the rocks. And I have missed some fabulous photo opportunities. For example, earlier this morning, Bully Boy -- my dominant male -- was sparring with subdominant male #1, who I have now named "Usurper", because he grabbed some of Bully Boy's territory. Anyway, for a few brief seconds, these two were right out under the light together as they sparred, and their colors were magnificent -- but I missed it! Darn!

gmen4life

yeah mine come from lfs cichlid tanks also i have 8 of them but i think they look awesome

Cichlidelicious

Angela, are you suggesting that if a hobbyist doesn't personally know the breeder that the fish are automatically of poor stock? While I can most certainly agree that a lot of fish which are sold in general pet stores, and even in some LFS are of poor, or at least questionable quality, to suggest that one must know the breeder in order to obtain good stock is taking it a little to the extreme, in my view, and painting with a broad brush. While what you are stating is the ideal situation, many of us simply don't have the luxury of buying directly from a breeder. I most certainly don't.

gmen4life

i agree my lfs look pretty good imo but i also am ot looking for the cichlid 5000 perfect marking award just something pretty to look at.........oh and um are they worth so much more for perfect breeding?

Angela_96

The fish that lfs's get are quanity fish, they come in shipments of 10-1000 (yes 1000 fish) to a 1 gallon bag. They are bred in fish farms.
This is a fact.

Unless you go to a specialty fish store, and know who the supplier is and that they don't use inbreedings, hormones, etc chances are they are poorly bred and in bad health.

You don't have to have friends that breed fish to get fish from a breeder, there are many people online that sell wild/f1 stock and even pure strains of fish.

I am into breeding my cichlids to sell, so to have good stock to sell I only buy the best fish from breeders. For someone who does not want to breed to sell thats a different story. A lot of cichlid people are pureist like myself who only buy certain strains of cichlids for their genetics, and if needed will throw a wild caught one in the mix to get the traits desired. I dont' like hybrids like many cichlid people (not all) and I never buy store bought fish unless it is a specialty store.

Its just like the issue with petland an puppy mills. Do you want a poorly cared for factory bred dog or one that was raised in a loving home with one on one care?