Bought 4 fish from a tank poorly marked as "Pseudotropheus elongatus". I talked to an attendant about the fish - he seemed to have extensive knowledge and was a cichlid breeder himself, rattling off the various ones he is currently breeding....

I'll add some pictures below... but here's the story I got:

All the fish in this tank were the same species (well yeah, but that's not what I meant)... I told him I wanted one male and three females. He told me the males were very evident. (See male picture below). I'm not disagreeing on that one.

I told him I wanted three females - best guesses - they were too small to vent. For my three females he told me it was questionable, because with this "species" the sub-dominant males will lighten up. He picked REALLY washed out looking specimens suggesting that was my best chance. (See female pictures below).

I don't know how to ask this, but here goes.... There are some cichlids which are dimorphic or whatever it's called - the females are clearly a different color then the males. I have looked in several books and found cichlids SIMILAR to my dark colored male with a very different and completely yellow female. I mean yellow like an electric yellow lab.

But I'm hoping they might all be "orantus" from this written description...

See: http://badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile115.html

The LFS guy tells me that the fish below are all the same fish and that in this strain (I don't know what to call it) the females are "washed out" and not a completely different color.

Are my cichlids all of the same species/strain or did I buy some "females" that might even be various sexes of a different fish and one clearly male ornatus?

Sorry - my camera is suffering from the wife dropping it last week - but you'll get the idea.

Male:




Possible sub-dominant male that "blued up" once out of the store tank:



Possible female:




Thanks for any thoughts! I hope they are all the same thing and not some mixed-bunch!!!

Bump!!!! Come on... I know there are a ton of cichlid experts out there who can help a cichlid newbie!

THANKS!!!!!

Hold on we're coming * Warning...i'm not an expert

Ok, from what I've gathered is that the first fish def. looks like an elongatus. It has the 2 black stripes on the forehead and another distinctive feature are the 7-8 vertical black bars on it's side(although I guess it can vary a little bit depending on the type of elongatus..in my Back to Nature guide to Malaiw Cichlids by Ad Konings there are roughly 20ish variants )

Anyway, i would say the 2nd one is a male and the third the pic isn't that good, but females are generally a greyish or brownish color.

Hope that helps in ID.

Hi, the first pic definately looks like a male.. the second pic looks like it could be a male of a different type.. and the third pic looks like a female, possibly to the male in your first pic.

How about taking back the male in the 2nd pic and swapping him for another female explaining to the shop keeper that its 'coloured up' and you suspect it to be male..

HTH

I would find out if they are a specific variant or not....chances are the lfs won't know, but I just came across profiles on cichlid forum and females of different variants do color up.....so it's hard to say what you have maybe? Venting may be the only way to tell a sub dominant male from a female

Thanks everyone - hope I didn't sound impatient! I've just been deperately trying to figure out what they are!!! I guess I'll wait a while longer and if I can finally vent then I'll take the one back and try to swap for a more likely female as suggested.... It's frustrating b/c the lfs is really a great shop and the staff are all veterans of the hobby - but they all are hired for their specialties and the cichlid "master" is almost never there - the store is shifting toward more marine stock... I appreciate the insight and will hope for the best!