Pelvicachromis taeniatus

[GaryE2]

Allow me to introduce my friends Mr and Ms P. taeniatus Iguede River Benin. If you look closely, you can see some of their young. They are fantastic parents.

The similarity to P pulcher, the krib, jumps out. They are close relatives, but taeniatus, a fish from Benin to Nigeria with one population known in Cameroon, remains smaller. Mine are in soft

water, at 26 degrees. They came from a metre deep flowing streambank under lily pads or in tall flowering plants. The Iguede River flows into the Niger River, and from there through Nigeria.

These are the first dwarf Cichlids I've kept that I first saw in my net, so watching them in their 1.3 m/4 foot tank has a special appeal. I look at the fish and in my mind's eye, the habitat appears.

 

[BullTerrierChild21 6]

An hour or so ago, I was about to post a thread on some pelvicachromis taeniatus "njanje" that I saw at Absolutely Fish, NJ. Yours are very impressive looking!

 

[GaryE2]

Most likely, Pelvicachromis kribensis Njanje. I had killies from there for a very long time, and it's in Cameroon. P taeniatus are limited to Nigeria and Benin, but until the fish were studied again by Dr. Anton Lamboj, the Cameroon fish were considered to be taeniatus. The store has to catch up on the names...

I'd love to get my paws on P kribensis Njanje because the location is very close to Moliwe, which in my opinion is the most beautiful P kribensis. Chances are they'd be the same fish. It's a beauty.

The differences between taeniatus and kribensis aren't huge. They are close relatives.

 

[fishorama38 13]

Well, even to my eye, I can see they are very different than my old "kribs". Especially the male! Wow! So many "new" species from different areas.

Thanks, GaryE, I'm always learning new stuff from you & many others. Even though I don't have enough tanks to follow up on them all, I love your pics!

 

[anewbie]

Those are pretty nice; wetspot has a new variant but i think these are nicer - of course it is all about eye candy since a krib is a krib; which isn't a bad thing but their ability as parents are fantastic and in a mature aquarium frys need little special care from the keeper.

 

[GaryE2]

"A krib is a krib", a flower's a flower, a bird's a bird, an Apistogramma's an apisto.... Them's fightin' words around here.

I had a guy once say all my killies looked the same, except they had different colours and shapes and stuff.

I wish I had access to wetspot. It's a brilliant store.

 

[Mr Limpet19 3]

Pelvicachromis, Wallaceochromis and Enigmatochromis are all “kribs”.

 

[anewbie]

"A krib is a krib", a flower's a flower, a bird's a bird, an Apistogramma's an apisto.... Them's fightin' words around here.

I had a guy once say all my killies looked the same, except they had different colours and shapes and stuff.

I wish I had access to wetspot. It's a brilliant store.

Well I think there is a little different between taking a sparrow from one region and comparing it to a bald eagle from another region then taking a pelvicachromis kribensis from one region and comparing it to one from another region

 

[GaryE2]

It's a bit like the discussion on Nannostomus pencil fish on another thread. If you get into a group of fish and pair that with information on that fish, you can begin to see the subtle differences as interesting. If you show me ten different hobby Pelvicachromis pulcher (the common krib), I'll think they're great. I always do. But there's no information to add.

If you look at 5 different locations of P kribensis, one will be yellow and grey. One will be brilliant turquoise, one mainly red, etc. The location info shows where they're from, and a run on google earth will show drainages and connections. Personally, I find this very interesting. One can come from soft acid water, and need it to breed. Another can come from a volcanic region with alkaline water.

If the fish is seen as an ornament, then a krib is a krib. If you get into the natural history, or the details of what you see as it affects populations, not individuals, then it can be interesting. It's a snapshot of evolution, and a peek into the process. If not, then a fish is just a fish, really.

 

[anewbie]

It's a bit like the discussion on Nannostomus pencil fish on another thread. If you get into a group of fish and pair that with information on that fish, you can begin to see the subtle differences as interesting. If you show me ten different hobby Pelvicachromis pulcher (the common krib), I'll think they're great. I always do. But there's no information to add.

If you look at 5 different locations of P kribensis, one will be yellow and grey. One will be brilliant turquoise, one mainly red, etc. The location info shows where they're from, and a run on google earth will show drainages and connections. Personally, I find this very interesting. One can come from soft acid water, and need it to breed. Another can come from a volcanic region with alkaline water.

The analogy with nannostomus is weak unless you are claiming that while genetically the same species their different locality result in different behavior. However - you talk about diversity in location and colour but no radical change in behavior.

What i find interesting in nannostomus is their radical diversity in behavior - though yes colour and size can have an influence on their desirability as an ornamental fish. Still the behavior between epesi, marilynae, trifasciatus, and marginatus are radically different - this ignores the diversity in shape, colour and pattern which is an added bonus.
-
For those who don't know i wanted to elaborate a little:
epesi - surf the top looking for insects and occasionally will jump out though not as bad as hatchet fishes
marilynae - smaller more shy and will clump up into a tight school esp when moving or around more robust fishes - will tend to stay in the top 1/3
trifasciatus - mean little devil very territorial and will defend that territory from other species at times but tend to stay in the upper 1/3
marginatus - very colorful at times - will spread out and mary little fashin cruise the entire aquarium from top to bottom. heavier bodied then trifs but shorter.

 

[GaryE2]

Behaviour - there are differences in egg behaviour, with water needs.

For developed fish, Pelvicachromis sacrimontis can be very aggressive, compared to pulcher. The Wallaceochromis group have been difficult to me, due to size and often severe aggression levels even in larger tanks. P roloffi has always been very cryptic here compared to P kribensis. P kribensis can sometimes have trouble in community set ups where I have seen it dominated. They can be too mild, even if they are wild caught. P pulcher does just fine in rougher company.

P taeniatus from Benin are new to me, and there are questions to be answered in time. Are they different? I don't know yet. Since I have fry, I may be able to keep the species long enough to see.

Many P kribensis locations hold their colours, while P subocellatus is only its stunning self when it's contemplating breeding.

P kribensis, the one I've bred the most, has strange asexual acting male shoals form. I haven't seen that (yet) with subocellatus, pulcher, roloffi, or drachenfelsi.

Those would be some of my observations after 35 years of these fish. I would love to get more locations within the species, and have more of a chance to see how silviae and sacrimontis are to keep longterm. I haven't done that. I have learned I'd have to keep kribensis Lobe differently from kribensis Moliwe, and that P drachenfelsi demands a higher level of fishkeeper focus than the species it used to be considered part of.

In my experience, they are as diverse a group as Nannostomus. I know observations can be skewed by tank size and set up, water sources etc, but experience says you only generalize about what you don't yet know. Generalization is a decent strategy to face what you don't know yet. In the earlier days of the hobby with less information available, Herbert Axelrod wrote entire books of such speculation, and made a lot of money from it!

Breed a species or a location of a species for a couple of generations, and the book opens. Sometimes it opens on the same page as other related fish, but sometimes it doesn't. It's not just a question of the book's colourful cover.