Apisto ID?

[MixtecoBlue]

Hello everyone!
First time poster, long time fish hobbyist.

I've only been into apistos for the past 6 months or so, but I'm slowly losing my mind over these silly fishes. They're great!

I acquired these fish locally to me and was told that they are WC from the Rio Negro. The seller told me that they came in as agassizii, but he thought they might actually be gephyra. I got the group as 2M, 3F though I'm for thinking that there is only a single male (the obvious one)...fine by me.

On to the pics:

Can you guys ID these for me?

 

[Bilbo]

From the very little I know about gephyra I would guess that these are them. The female in your pictures seems to have a red edge to her dorsal and the males seem to have a few of the tell tale signs like a slightly more rounded tail and a white boarder.

Very similar and either way they are lovely looking fish congrats and good luck.

 

[orkunk]

Hello All,

I want to point out something to Mike:

My friend, I looked at the fish in the link you sent for Tefe and then I read this post from Mixteco Blue. I think today is "surprise Orkun day" or something Mixteco Blue's photos resemble my fish under consideration (which I believed to be Tefe redback) even more??? The tail fin coloration and shape in Mixteco Blue's photos is exactly the same with my male. And the passed away female I was trying to describe to Mike was like the ones swimming around the male.

So my humble wote to the ID contest is "Tefe redback" (if there is such a thing, of course )

 

[Mike Wise]

Mixteco Blue, first welcome to the apisto forum! Your fish definitely are not A. gephyra: wrong caudal fin pattern, wrong dosal fin color pattern, wrong lateral band pattern, and show scales on the breast area. Many people automatically think that any agassizii-like species from the Rio Negro is A. gephyra, but actually both species are found in the lower course of the river. I could be wrong, but the claimed collecting location seems wrong, too. The male looks nothing like any of the Rio Negro populations that I've seen. They look more like one of the forms that comes from Peru.

http://forum.apistogramma.com/member.php?u=6164Orkun, the primary visible difference that separates male A. sp. Tefé from A. aggassizii is the prominent wavy stripes (often burgundy red when in threat display) that are seen below the lateral band. Some Tefé populations even have these stripes above the lateral band. MixtecoBlue's A. agassizii don't show these wavy lines, of course. If your male has the wavy lines then it is A. sp. Tefé, otherwise it probably is A. agassizii - and yes, there is a Tefé red-back form.

 

[MixtecoBlue]

if the person i got them from was wrong (or i misheard, and was thinking of another fish he had)...and they are not necessarily rio negro what would you have said that they were? If they were peru, what would they be?

I trust the quality of the fish i buy from him, but sometimes he talks so fast its hard to remember what he says. i wont see him again for another month, and he's not very internet savvy. I can verify then, but whatever I can find out now would be great!

 

[Mike Wise]

if the person i got them from was wrong (or i misheard, and was thinking of another fish he had)...and they are not necessarily rio negro what would you have said that they were? If they were peru, what would they be?

They are A. agassizii. Without knowing who collected the fish and where it was collected, that's all one can call them. In the 80s we just used a descriptive name: Red Top Blue/White Agassizii.

 

[Mike Wise]

if the person i got them from was wrong (or i misheard, and was thinking of another fish he had)...and they are not necessarily rio negro what would you have said that they were? If they were peru, what would they be?

They are A. agassizii. Without knowing who collected the fish and where it was collected, that's all one can call them. In the 80s we just used a descriptive name: Red Top Blue/White Agassizii. This color morph is found in several river systems in Peru and western Brazil.