Fish that move weird

[raymond82]

Hi,

In the end I couldn't resist buying the Congochromis sp. "Green Speckle". Some of the fish in the shop looked a bit weaker but I picked four that were looking healthy.

Now that they are home and acclimatized, I'm a bit worried about their behavior. The keep their fins clamped and move very frantically (maybe spastically is a better word), sometimes wiggling their bodies. It's almost as if there is a lot of current in the aquarium (which there isn't), they weren't doing this in the shop. When I fed them they all ate vigorously.

This is not the clearest of explanations maybe, but I was hoping someone may have experience with this behavior.

Thanks!

 

[wethumbs]

Without knowing your tank setup, water paramters, and what you have done to the tank, it is hard to help diagnose the cause.

I have seen similar behavior in a tank where the female Pelvicachromis subocellatus sp matadi was doing the similar thing you mentioned. I asked the people who worked there and they told me a water change was just performed in that tank. Apparently, the water parameters were not to her liking as the water was abit cloudy as well. She did recover and was courting the male when I visited a week later.

I have bred Congochromis sabinae for over two years. The wild fish all came in very bad shape with missing ventrals and damage fins that was caused by poor water conditions during shipment. They all recovered after some TLC and the ventral fins would grow back to a certain degree.

 

[raymond82]

Thanks for your reply! Could be that indeed they are just sensitive to change. I might have been a bit over worried, of the first pair I bought the female was almost dead when I came home (and died the next day) and some of the fish in the shop looked quite sick. I bought another 2 females and a male and although they were the healthier looking ones I was still worried. However, they seem to be doing fine now, they still show some frantic moving but their fins are not clamped anymore and they eat well and colored up.

One female hides in a cave all the time, I took her separately yesterday but she looked healthy so I put her back with the rest. The other three are schooling all the time, it's very interesting behavior! They're quite outgoing too, whenever I approach the aquarium the three of them come to the glass. Their behavior seems very different from what I've seen in Apistogramma species. Hopefully the other female will come out and join the other three soon.

The fish were sold to me as C. sp. Green Speckle, I understood from a previous post that they are a form of C. sabinae. To be honest, based on pictures I find through google I don't see many differences between my fish and the C. sabinae, other than an iridescent spot that the females have, which I don't see on pics of C. sabinae.

here are some pictures of my fish:

This picture shows the iridescent spot on the female:

 

[raymond82]

I just read in the species description in seriouslyfish.com that a larger iridescent spot is actually what dissociates C. sabinae from C. sp Green Speckle.

 

[wethumbs]

I was talking to Dr. Anton Lamboj at the ACA convention two years ago and he did mention all three localities are confirmed Congochromis sabinae. He specifically mentioned the sp. "Green Speckle" was no different. I didnt press him for more info such as DNA work since I was more interested in his data on water parameters that influence sex ratio. He published them as undescribed species on p.164 to 165 of The Cichlid Fishes of Western Africa.

 

[raymond82]

Thank you for clarifying that! Looking back at a previous thread I started about these fish Ruki actually mentioned the same thing, also based on Anton Lamboj. Lamboj is coming tho the Netherlands in March to give a talk, given my new interest in West African species I'll try to go! That book sounds very interesting, just checked on amazon but it's quite pricey...