Fish Id

[OohFeeshy]

Yup, I've had a look at shelldwellers.com, and seen nothing matching, and also searched fishbase for anything in the lamprologus genus, and no matches.

 

[vancouver]

I saw that same fish when I was at the lfs a few days ago.. I tried to remember the name, but I forgot.. lol

 

[juanveldez]

without seeing a clear shot of the fish its kind of hard to get a proper id. espically important is the head and mouth structure. when your dealing with africans where so many of them come in varying shades of blue ( malawi espically) that can be the only thing that will help you to properly identify your fish.

so until then I am going to reserve casting an id.

 

[Exiled]

Unusual markings-- maybe a Melanochromis of some kind .... and probably a hybrid.

 

[OohFeeshy]

They're still perfect at the art of not letting me get a clear picture, so I can't give you any more pictures. Later on, when I've got it running they'll be moving to a 15g as pretty much the only top/mid dwellers. Behaviour wise though, the larger one has been hanging out in the flowerpot, and both have been digging pits under the fake plants. I've seen no aggression between them.

Unusual markings-- maybe a Melanochromis of some kind .... and probably a hybrid

Hmmm, I has a look at the melanochrmois genus... You could be right. This looks quite similar, could be a hybrid or just young, or not at all, apparently thats a Melanochromis perileucos.

 

[Exiled]

I'm just a little sceptical about the ID of that pic by Johnson ..... it's morphology is a little more reminicent of the Pseudotropheus elongatus sp. but oh well..... Once you capture some better photo's we'll be able to tell- also -- do your best to get a detailed photo og his head and mouth structure. What really sets cichlids apart is their tooth and mouth morphology, as each species has evolved to exploit different locals of food and harvesting techniques.


Also look into cynotilapia afra (another highly variagated species) Some are icy blue and have vertical bars all the way to the tail like yours does. Look closely at many photos of fin structure and head structure.

Good luck!

By the way -- the store that sold it didn' know the ID either? or was it sold under the cop-out label "assorted african cichlids" ?
in which case there is a higher probability that it is indeed a hybrid because breeders with hybrids will market them this way to retailers)
Anyway -- I'm looking forward to helping you out with this. IDing cichlids for people is one of my crazy hobbies.

 

[OohFeeshy]

By the way -- the store that sold it didn' know the ID either? or was it sold under the cop-out label "assorted african cichlids" ?
in which case there is a higher probability that it is indeed a hybrid because breeders with hybrids will market them this way to retailers)

As I said, they were from Maidenhead Aquatics, this particular shop has a massive malawi section and these two were in a completely different area of the shop in a tank with gold CAE's and some sort of barb. I wasn't sure what they were as there was no label, so I asked one of the assistants and he didn't know, I suspect he didn't want to look it up or anything as it was pretty much closing time. The reason I got the impression to start with they were a pair is that, obviously, they were the only two non- barb/cae's in the tank.

Neither appears to be a cynotilapia afra. What sort of mouth picture do you want?

 

[Bloo]

Was there no label on the tank ? Quite unusual for a MA. Perhaps just ring them up tomorrow and ask

 

[Ben]

if you have time,
try looking at the Cichlid Forum Profiles, they've probably got it