L. curviceps showing a bit of colour

[anewbie]

These are tank raised from wetspot; most of the time they look like the pair in the foreground but i guess they decided some territory dispute needed a bit of colour; the aquarium they are in is 8 feet long and 4 feet wide but they still choose to hang out together (there are 4 total):

Havent' seen pictures of them before with deep solid purple...

 

[Hellfishguy]

Nice fish, but they’re Laetacara dorsigera, not curviceps.

 

[anewbie]

Nice fish, but they’re Laetacara dorsigera, not curviceps.

Well that is interesting; thanks for the info. Guess wetspot got it wrong. Can you tell if the two in the forefront as also dorsigera. More precisely how do you tell the difference. The article i read talks about colouring being the different not actual marking on the fish which i find kind of weak.

 

[anewbie]

This link has some good info to answer my question:

Laetacara dorsigera or curviceps?

Hey guys So I picked up some Laetacara curviceps recently (or at least that’s what they were sold as) but as they’ve settled in and colors and patterns have shown, I’m now questioning if they actually are curviceps.. after researching around I have a feeling they may be the very similar Laetacara...

forum.aquariumcoop.com

But the two species are very similar; the biggest difference i'm seeing is the black line is broken on the dorsigera at mid body (which mine are) and the curviceps are not broken but i'm not sure if that is definitive. There is a scale count difference but i'm not very good at counting scales.

 

[Mike Wise]

I can't say anything about the 2 foreground fish. They are too out of focus to tell anything. I tend to look at the infraorbital band that runs from the top of one eye to the other. It is noticeably broader (and usually darker) in L. dorsigera than L. curviceps. Also their breeding/booding color patterns are very different.

 

[Hellfishguy]

But the two species are very similar; the biggest difference i'm seeing is the black line is broken on the dorsigera at mid body (which mine are) and the curviceps are not broken but i'm not sure if that is definitive. There is a scale count difference but i'm not very good at counting scales.

There's no need to count scales. Besides being slimmer than the stockier L. dorsigera, L. curviceps always have a white border on the rear of their dorsal fins; the border on dorsigera is red throughout its length. This is apparent even in young specimens - the fish in the photo was about 1.5 inches long at the time

 

[anewbie]

There's no need to count scales. Besides being slimmer than the stockier L. dorsigera, L. curviceps always have a white border on the rear of their dorsal fins; the border on dorsigera is red throughout its length. This is apparent even in young specimens - the fish in the photo was about 1.5 inches long at the time

View attachment 14036

Is this a colour morph thing or true for all colour varities ? (there was an earlier thread on apistogramma.com that talked about many different colour morphs for these species).

 

[Hellfishguy]

Is this a colour morph thing or true for all colour varities ? (there was an earlier thread on apistogramma.com that talked about many different colour morphs for these species).

I can’t say with certainty that it applies to all morphs, but this was the case with all the variants I’ve kept over the years.