Apistogramma paucisquamis

[Richgrenfell]

So i'm scoping out the tanks in one of the shops I haunt, and I come across a tank of tiny little guys labled as A. paucisquamis. how the guy in the shop can tell i'll never know. They are about a half inch at best. They do have some caudal pattern, but they are a bit to small for me to tell. He had a total of 18 fish, and I bought every one. They were seriously infected with gill flukes which I treated with flukes tabs. All are doing fine now, and eating bbs with great gusto. soooo....we'll see. I sure do hope he was right! Even though they were small they were a tad expensive! He told me that they were supposed to come in as checkerboards, but the shipper sent these guys. I wasn't going to say anything till I knew for sure, but Neil asked Dave to look for them in Germany so I couldn't resist!
As they gain some size and strength i'll be sure to snap some shots so we can all hoot and holler about what they might be!

Rich

 

[Neil]

Rich,
If that is what they are, that is great! They are very rarely imported, except as contaminants. Suprise, suprise, huh! Let us know what they turn out to be.

Neil

 

[Richgrenfell]

Well, i have to say, this same guy sold me some tiny fish I was unsure about once before, and he turned out to be right. So i'm pretty hopeful!

Rich

 

[Randall]

A. paucisquamis

Dear Rich,

From your description, I'd expect that your fish are wild caught. To help with an accurate ID, some collection information would surely be of benefit. Can you ask your local guy to try to find out were the fish were collected?

Good luck with them, and please keep us posted.

All the best,

Randall Kohn

 

[Richgrenfell]

The guy I bought them from got them from a distributor, so he did not import them himself. i used to work for the distributor, and I can assure you that they don't have collection data. being that they were "supposed" to be checkerboards, and were listed as such on the invoice, tracking down the data will be pretty tough. I will ask though......

Rich

 

[Neil]

Rich,
I wouldn't be suprised if they were paucisquamis, as D. filamentosa occupy the same biotopes of many of their locations of collection. They also sometimes come in with T. candidi, which I know you have been looking for and also are sometimes in dicrossus shipments. Worth looking through those filamentosa imports, huh!
If they are paucisquamis, you are in for a challange. They IMO one of the tougher apistos.
Neil

 

[Richgrenfell]

Hey,
i got a pic of one of them. Is there anywhere on this site to upload to?

Rich

P.S. Neil, there is nothing I like better than a good challenge![/img]