Request: Dwarf Crenicichla ID

[boofeng]

Hi everyone

My local fish shop brought in what they called "Crenicichla regani", catch location "Orinoco" (which isn't very helpful), and I wonder if anyone here can help to ID it more precisely. Here are some pics of the dominant female (sorry for low quality - my phone isn't so good). They're still juveniles I think, about 2-3 inches only now.

Some features I can see:
- eleven vertical bars when stressed
- single eyespot on females (I have four fish with a single eyespot, and two with no eyespots)
- red/pink marks around eyespots, and around eye, especially behind it
- flanks are sometimes iridescent pink/green
- dorsal, anal, and caudal fin sometimes show faint orange edging (it wavers between orange and pink/red, with the paler bits appearing orange sometimes, and the darker bits being consistently pink/red)
- there is a transparent longitudinal stripe near the top edge of the dorsal fin

I'm suspecting from the orange fin bits that this might be an intermediate between some notophthalmus species and the wallacii species found in the neighbouring basin (can't recall the name, Essequibo in Guyana?) - but looking forward to getting some info so I can recreate their biotope water conditions more accurately.

So far they're doing okay in pH 5 (using ADA Malaya to buffer pH), TDS 120-130 water (local tap). There's a bit of fungus on the subdominant fish from getting bitten but it's clearing up with time - I need to do water changes more frequently.

 

[Mike Wise]

Obviously not C. regani because this 'superspecies' (many different forms/species) only occurs in the Amazon/Tocantins system. My guess is that it's a fish called as C. sp. Orinoco Dwarf or C. cf. wallacii. Dwarf pikes are not my thing, so I could be wrong. I suggest starting a search for information with these names.

 

[dwarfpike]

My Colombian wallacii had orange rimmed ocelli with no white to be seen. The Cr. sp. Orinoco Dwarf has red and white rimmed ocelli. There are also at least two other undescribed dwarves from the same area, and I have seem them come in as a mix together. The only one I can discount from the pictures is Cr. sp. Inridae dwarf. Definitely not that one.

I did buy one female with white rimmed ocelli thinking it was something different, but over time the white faded into orange. I'm not sure if this means that the Colombian wallacii goes through a change or not. I don't know any other dwarves that do.

 

[boofeng]

Thanks, Mike and dwarfpike.

So far, the orangeness isn't anywhere near the ocelli, it's on the rear edges of the dorsal, anal and tail fins. So maybe we can rule out a Colombian wallacii.

It does look quite similar to this fish: http://www.aquarium-glaser.de/en/crenicichla-cf-regani-orinoco_en_1310.html

And in terms of behaviour, so far they're tolerating each other (well, they're probably juveniles!).

I'll continue to document them as they grow - as dwarfpike points out the juvenile and mature coloration isn't always the same. Hopefully they'll grow a bit more, and I'll have better photos soon.

Thanks all, once again!

 

[dwarfpike]

See in some of your pics there does look like orange around the dorsal ocelli ... but that could be the lighting, which is why I didn't give a more definite answer.

 

[boofeng]

See in some of your pics there does look like orange around the dorsal ocelli ... but that could be the lighting, which is why I didn't give a more definite answer.

It's probably lighting - the colouring around the ocelli look pretty consistently red/pink-based to me.

So mysterious. I took some more photos today but they're mostly blurry again. Will check back in once I have good pics!

 

[dwarfpike]

I figured that might be the case.

They are tough critters to catch a good pic of in my experience.

 

[boofeng]

I figured that might be the case.

They are tough critters to catch a good pic of in my experience.

Yeah they are! I'll try again when I get my hands on a proper camera.

Anyway I can't get pics now that I'm dosing the whole tank with API Fungus Cure (that's Malachite Green and Acriflavin), and it's all green now. Surprisingly, though, the green disappears rather quickly - maybe I should turn off the lights. The fungus on their fins isn't disappearing in spite of water changes (10-20% every two/three days) and dosing Pimafix, so I'm escalating the meds. Fungus is also starting to get onto bodies too, though it isn't expanding on the fins. Only the dominant female and the smaller male is free of fungus, - which makes me wonder if there's a lot of unseen aggression going on in there (the tank is in an out of the way place, so I don't get to see it as much as I'd like).