ID dwarf banded cichlids please.

[apisto420]

Obviously a male

Hoping a female

Picked up 5 of these little suckers, pretty sure right now i have 2 female and 3 males if i am right at sexing them, they were labeled dwarf banded cichlids but i am wondering which one??

 

[tompoz]

Is this not A. cf. bitaeniata? And if so, I would say that the second fish is a male too.
However, there are other people here that are much better in ID/sexing than me.

 

[apisto420]

both males? damn that means i have all males if you are right... what is "cf" stand for? isnt there a couple different species of bitaeniatas??

 

[Mike Wise]

Tom is correct on both counts: It is A. bitaeniata and both specimens are males. I don't know why Tom called them A. cf. bitaeniata. He may be more strict about labels than most hobbyists. Maybe he knows about the possibility that what we call 'A. bitaeniata' is not the same as Pellegrin's holotype of A. pertense bitaeniatum. Nevertheless, if you really want to find females, look for slightly smaller, stockier specimens with no markings on the caudal fin and very little metallic blue on the face. Where do you live? I have an excess of female A. bitaeniata (Tigre) available.

 

[apisto420]

i am in vancouver bc, would it be possible to ship them down here?

 

[Mike Wise]

I'm afraid that shipping internationally is a complete can of worms. I did ship to a Canadian hobbyist once, but I shipped to his upper New York post office box. He picked them up in NY and drove them to Montreal.

 

[bigbird]

for your info

cf., an abbreviation for the Latin word confer (the imperative singular form of "conferre"), literally meaning "bring together", is used to refer to other material or ideas which may provide similar or different information or arguments. It is mainly used in scholarly contexts, such as in academic (mainly humanities, physics, chemistry, and biology) or legal texts. It is translated, and can be read aloud, as "compare

thanks to wikipedia

cheers jk

 

[Apistomaster]

If you have a friend on the Washington State side of the border it is easy to get some fish by having them sent to the friend's USA address and all you need for customs is an invoice identifying the species and the price paid.
It is getting cold enough to be risky to use Express Mail but I do it all the time between March and September depending on the prevailing weather.