Confused over A. agassizi

[aarhud]

Hello,

I would like to find a wild type A. agassizi type to work with. Interesting how color varies so much between individuals, so I thought it would be fun to raise up a few batches of fry. I have been browsing aquabid and a few other places, and I am confused by the names. I have seen A. agassizi "red tail" listed as wild, but I thought the red tail was the name of an aquarium strain? I also considered Daves tefe pearl blue, but I am not sure what that is. From my understanding, is the tefe pearl blue just a trad name until the species gets formally described? Maybe I'm making too big of a deal out of it, I just want to know what I am buying, and what to tell people down the road if I decide to pass on fry.

A friend told me that A. agassizi differ in their difficulty based on their locations. Is there any wild types from clear water that I should look out for? My water is slightly too hard for blackwater species.

Thanks!

 

[Mike Wise]

Well, A. agassizii as we now know it seems to be a 'superspecies' composed of several forms (species?) that have geographically defined ranges in the wild. "Red-tail" and "Tefé Pearl Blue" are just descriptive common names and indicate nothing about being a wild population or a domestic strain. A. agassizii with red tails are found all over the Amazon. The Rio Tefé has blue fish of 2 distinct species of the agassizii-complex. Since this species is so highly polychromatic, the color of the male is no guarantee of the color of the offspring. I think your best bet is to look for some wildcaught fish from Peru. These are commonly less expensive than the 'name brands'. Most of the Peruvian populations are found in mixed clear/blackwater streams. They are commonly found in the same water values as A. cf. eunotus. Thus, they are less demanding than the more blackwater species from the same area like A. bitaeniata, A. nijsseni, etc.

 

[aarhud]

Thanks Mike.

Finding out where the fish originate is going to take some digging.

 

[Mike Wise]

Keep an eye out for posts from Jeff M. (Aquaticlarity). Most of his aggies no matter what they're called are listed by country of origin.

 

[aarhud]

Jeff has some in at the moment from Peru. I'm going to try to pick up a pair from him. He has a red tail population for sale, does that mean I will get a different colors, but all offspring will still have red in the tail?

 

[aquaticclarity]

Aaron, just sent you an email but the "red tail" on a wild caught batch of fish is sort of a "marker name" of sorts. The batch over all has a lot of high red amount males but not all of them are red and not all of the patterns with red are the same as well. But when compared to some batches of agassizii which are very blue, green, or even yellow these guys are red. But not red in the sense of a domestic line bred agassizii.

 

[aarhud]

Thanks Jeff! Got your email as well. That clears things up. I think the domestic red tails are hideous, remind me of fancy guppies.

 

[Mike Wise]

In wild aggies, red males do not guarantee red offspring. The male provides only half the genetics. How do you you know the male is from a red male and red female? You'll most likely get variations in caudal fin color in the offspring, some red, some blue, some other colors, too. That's why this species is considered polychromatic.

 

[aarhud]

Great, that is what I am looking for. I thought the species were polychromatic in the wild, and that pulling two individual fish from a population would lead to similar colored fish. I know wild guppy keepers run into that problem sometimes.

Moving into my first house next week (I hope), and plan on rewarding all of my hard work with some new fish. I can't decide if I want to go the safe route and order 2 pairs of aggies, or try a pair of something else

 

[Mike Wise]

Personally, I prefer getting 2 (or 3) pair and putting the extra males in a separate tank. It really depends on the tanks size.

 

[aarhud]

Same here Mike. But Jeff has such a nice list I might tempt fate. With gKH of 4-5, and gGH of 4-5, will I need to mess with my tap water in order to spawn the aggies?

 

[Mike Wise]

I don't think so. OTOH you might want to add some sphagnum peat-filterer water to help get the pH below 6.5. It'll lower the hardness a bit, too. Both will encourage breeding.