loafybones
Fish Crazy
I bought a new tank not long ago and started to fill it with mbuna type fish.
I was working by the rule that you stock 1 male to 3 females. the first 4 I bought were sold just as 'Malawis' but I was sure that they were red zebras (Metriaclima estherae) because they looked exactly the same as all of the pictures i'd seen. I got a blue male and 3 orange females.
The problem is that now they've grown a bit, I'm really not sure if they are what I thought they were.
They move too fast for me to be able to take pictures so I'l just have to try and describe them!
The blue one is about 1.5" long. It's a light blue colour and has darker blue vertical stripes. It has a light blue spot by it's gills and little bits of black around the edges of all of it's fins. it also has a little spot right on the back edge of it's anal fin. It sort of fades in colour every now and then.
The orange ones are also about 1.5" long and are pretty straight forward to describe! They have really feint vertical stripes. They have spots on their anal fins too.
The thing that has made me change my mind about what they are is that now I have put in some yellow labs, the orange ones are acting a little bit maleish (if that makes sense) they seem to be a bit more agressive than the blue one which i thought was the male.
Now i'm worried that I have Kenyis rather than zebras. I know that the colouration of these is the opositte way around to the zebras.
I'M ALL CONFUSED!!!!!!!!!
I was working by the rule that you stock 1 male to 3 females. the first 4 I bought were sold just as 'Malawis' but I was sure that they were red zebras (Metriaclima estherae) because they looked exactly the same as all of the pictures i'd seen. I got a blue male and 3 orange females.
The problem is that now they've grown a bit, I'm really not sure if they are what I thought they were.
They move too fast for me to be able to take pictures so I'l just have to try and describe them!
The blue one is about 1.5" long. It's a light blue colour and has darker blue vertical stripes. It has a light blue spot by it's gills and little bits of black around the edges of all of it's fins. it also has a little spot right on the back edge of it's anal fin. It sort of fades in colour every now and then.
The orange ones are also about 1.5" long and are pretty straight forward to describe! They have really feint vertical stripes. They have spots on their anal fins too.
The thing that has made me change my mind about what they are is that now I have put in some yellow labs, the orange ones are acting a little bit maleish (if that makes sense) they seem to be a bit more agressive than the blue one which i thought was the male.
Now i'm worried that I have Kenyis rather than zebras. I know that the colouration of these is the opositte way around to the zebras.
I'M ALL CONFUSED!!!!!!!!!
