Blue Acara Pics

[star4]

Does anyone have any pictures of young blue acara, roughly about 1-3". I am looking for some and it seems each time I go to view some they are texas?

 

[Joller]

i don't have any pics but main differences would be
texas are mostly brown. blue acara are mostly grey
texas have alot more spots. juvi blue acara have relativly few blue spots and are usually striped.
blue acaras will also have an orange or white lining along the top of their dorsal fin


also lookout for green terrors, when juvi they are very similar to blue acaras but as they grow are very aggressive
in green terrors the orange lining will go all the way to the bottom of the caudal fin whereas on blue acaras it will only be very faint at the top half of teh caudal fin

 

[star4]

Thanks Joller, now I am really confused about what I do have. I have bought some "blue acara" which are greyish and do sometimes show stripes, however they are rather a lot of blue spots but no colouration on any fins?

I think I will have to see what happens when they grow up!

 

[Joller]

if you can post pics we could ID them for you.
blue acaras do have blue spots as juvis just not alot of them

 

[star4]

sorry they are not great pics but here goes. Is them all excitable.

which they look like texas..

But this is what confuses me, if you can see the one by the filter is all stripy??? and relaxed, which is how they look 50% of the time. which makes it look like a blue acara.

 

[minxfishy]

Definately texas cichlids, have never seen one go stripey like that!!! Looks very strange.

Be trying to find my photos of my blue acaras I had ages ago, but cant find them.

 

[Cichlid_Crazy]

Yeh those Texas look the same as mine, you have a juvi frontosa in there to...how big is your tank?

 

[minxfishy]

is that what the stripey fish to the left of the filter is, a frontosa? I assumed thats what Star4 was saying they go like

Mags has lost the plot today

 

[Cichlid_Crazy]

Hehe yeh lil diddy one..you can tell by its head shape and fins....they get bigggggggggggg lol but the Texas will probably kill it

 

[snowflake311]

Here are my Blue acaras when they were 1.2"

Here they are at 3"

I would say the horizontal marks are due to stress. when my Blue acaras get stressed they will have a Horizontal line.

But yes you have some cute baby Texas cichids. The only Cichlid native to the USA.

 

[star4]

Yes mags you have lost the plot lol, the one the other side of the filter I was on about, the propper stripy one is indeed one of my baby front.

Thanks everyone for the clarification, looks like I got caught, the bloke I had these off has sold over 200 of these baby cough "blue acara" and I have 4 larger ones in my 5ft tank although they are being bullied at the moment they wont be for long! shame they have got to go they all feed by hand too .

The fronts are only 1" at the mo and are in a 3ft tank, then they are going into a 5ft tank as soon as its finished!

 

[Davo86]

To Id young acaras, look for the black band under the eyes which is a good indication they are a aequidens species

 

[star4]

Cheers Davo, I noticed that black under the eye and through the eye, the eyes in general are a different colour by looks. It seems there are some people passing off texas as blue acara (not this site), the ones I bought and the others I looked at. Its why I was confused about what I had bought!, its broken my heart, I dont have lots of money to buy fish and I have got really attached to the ones I have.

 

[snowflake311]

I'm raising some blue acara fry right now I would give you some.

 

[star4]

What a lovely offer thanks snowflake, unfortunately I would have to decline as collection would be a bit of a problem lol.

The pictures are a great help I know exactly what to look for now, Thank you so much.