Pelvicachromis ID

[Joe Gatchell]

Bought this fish as p. pulcher, it is a male, though it is not showing the characteristics of male p. pulcher in dorsal fin. Photo number one is side profile, photo number 2 shows his color a little better, and photo 3 is another p. pulcher purchased from the same tank. Could it be a hybrid? My other pulchers all have yellow faces, this one has a very red face/body with no noticeable yellow when he is colored up. His dorsal fin reminds me more of my p. taeniatus dorsal, where there is not a real tapered point. Picture 4 is one of my taeniatus males for comparison.

 

[tjudy]

Hello, and welcome to the forum.

The top three image are all P. pulcher. The fourth image is P. taeniatus. IME P. pulcher and P. taeniatus will very rarely hybridize. I have never seen it happen.

 

[Joe Gatchell]

Hello, and welcome to the forum.

The top three image are all P. pulcher. The fourth image is P. taeniatus. IME P. pulcher and P. taeniatus will very rarely hybridize. I have never seen it happen.

Thanks for the welcome!

That first p. pulcher was just so different from the second I wasn't sure what to make of it. In my limited experience I've not seen p. pulcher with the red face like that. When I originally purchased the fish I thought it was a female based on the dorsal fin. I had to temporarily house him with 7 similar sized p. taeniatus and that's when I found out he was a male. He harrassed the females a little bit, but he challenged all three of my taeniatus males pretty aggressively for a while there. Had them all submit too. He has since been moved to a tank alone.

 

[Joe Gatchell]

Here's another comparison shot of the kribs. I still think the red one looks different, but I just wanted to post this pick because it was a neat shot.

 

[tjudy]

All the fish are P. pulcher. The one with more red is the aggressor in the tank. His lack of a lateral line stripe indicates that he is being territorial and trying to drive the other males away. The amount of red in kribs is highly variable, even in the so-called 'super red'. Selective breeding for red will result in a strain that have more fish that have more red, but there will always be range of 'redness'.

 

[Joe Gatchell]

Well, he's a good looking fish colored up. I'm going to try to get a friend to take the male he is chasing. When I originally bought them both, we (the lfs owner and I) thought the red was a female. (was considerably smaller at the time).

 

[tjudy]

The best way to determine sex is to look at the ventral fins. On males that are elongated, pointed and have an iridescent leading (first) ray. Female ventral fins have the first three rays shorter than the middle rays, which makes the fins rounded off and truncated compared to males. There is rarely iridescence in the female ventral fins, and when displaying they will be very dark.

 

[briztoon]

Is there a chance that two of the "kribs" in that last photo are pelvicachromis sacrimontis, and the one being chased is pelvicachromis pulcher.

 

[aquaticclarity]

Nope, those are all pulcher. The tail shape, pattern, and most notably color is not what you find on sacrimontis.