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Shelldwellers

Rod

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
196
Location
Brisbane,Australia
I Love dwarf cichlids...

grew up keeping kribs....and the odd Apisto

So now have a few Apisto's and West Africans

Also been keeping shellies....not as pretty....but tons of character and absolutely bulletproof.....

Nice to see a section on Rift Lake Dwarfs
DSCF2177.jpg

2006_0723fryoccy10041.jpg

2006_0723fryoccy10033.jpg

2006_0723fryoccy10018.jpg

telmat2.jpg

2006_1219brevispair.jpg
 

briztoon

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
203
Location
Brisbane, Australia
Very nice shellies Rod.

Now stop it, I don't have enough tanks.

Just kidding. Like I asked Todd, could you do up a list of what you're keeping at the moment.
 

Rod

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
196
Location
Brisbane,Australia
zaire2.jpg

zaire.jpg


My latest Love.....anyone want to say what they are?

Hey Briztoon....with regard my current stock
simple answer....Too Many!!!
Doing a review ATM.....need to cut back to ensure adequate space to growout fry
7 species of shellies
6 species of killies
6 species of Apisto's
6 species of West African dwarfs
4 species of Wild type bettas
2 species of central Americans
+ Dario dario
+ several varieties of endlers
 

Noddy65

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
99
Location
Sydney, NSW
Lamprologus ornatippinnis ?

What species of shellies do you have Rod

Ive got:
Lamprologus meleagris
Lamprologus speciosus
Lamprologus similis
Lamprologus signatus
Lamprologus occelatus ‘gold’
Lamprologus boulengeri (kiritvaithai)

Lepidolamprolgus attenuates

Neolamprologus cylindricus
Neolamprologus caudopunctatus
Neolamprologus falcicula
Neolamprologus buescheri (Kachese)

Some are true shellies...some are sortof shellies :)

Mike :)
 

Cichlid Junkie

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
169
Location
Warner Robins, Georgia
Here are a few pics from my cell phone (disclaimer) of my Neolamprologus sp "brevis dwarf" Karilani

FTS
IMAG0092.jpg
They are quick!
IMAG0094.jpg

This is the day I got them back in mid Feb.
100_0371.jpg


Here is a pic of my male Telmatochromis sp. "temporalis shell" that I had going after one of my Multies. He was a mean guy (killed 2 of the mated females he was with) so I had to put him in solitary confinement. He was very happy there till he died.

DSC01680.jpg
 

Rod

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
196
Location
Brisbane,Australia
Hi Mike...

Not Lamprologus ornatippinnis....;)

Here's what I have atm....it's one of these

L. occelatus "Blue"(my first shellie....still have decendants from my original pair)
N. multifasciatus
N. similis
L. calliurus "Magara"
L. brevis "Kavalla"
L. brevis "Bulu Point"
L. brevis "Zaire"

Hoping to add L. brevis "katete" soon???

Would Love some of those dwarf brevis....from "Karilani Island"(very jealous!!)

Will probably downsize to shellies + dwarf bettas + the odd apisto and a couple of Westies
Shellies work so well in Brisbane tap water.....but I like to add some Sodium bicarbonate + cichlid trace
I love the soft water fish but the shellies are much more forgiving with the amount of travel I do for work
I have a pair of brevis "kavalla" in a 16 litre Klar Crystal tank on my desk.....with a few fry as well!
 

killiguy

Member
Messages
48
Location
Geelong australia
Nice collection Rod.I love those brevis types;the kavalas yellow are awesome.You'd have to think the Zaire one would be classsified as another species eventually

I like to keep shellies under my smaller rainbows in 3 ft tanks.
I have L.ornatapinnis,speciosus,similis,brevis(from who knows where)

By the way Rod what killis do you have?It seems very few people keep these fish in Aus
 

Rod

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
196
Location
Brisbane,Australia
I have a few theory's about origins of a few varieties of brevis.....traits that could have been passed on by hybridization??

I have a few Killies
2 varieties of gardneri
Chocolate Australe
Striatum
Annulatus
Bivittatum
 

killiguy

Member
Messages
48
Location
Geelong australia
Do you mean natural hybridization or done in someones tank??

Nice list of killis which bivittatum is it?

If you ever want to have a go at a Notho eg N.rachovii let me know,I can send some eggs
 

Rod

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
196
Location
Brisbane,Australia
I'd suggest natural hybridization.....

The strong white line on the tail of "Zaire" is unlike any other brevis.....perhaps it's a brevis crossed with similis or meeli?
I'd suggest L. calliurus "Magara" is a cross between brevis and Neolamprologus brichardi type....hence the lyre tail???

A genetic study of Australian Rainbows showed some populations were hybrids of other variants.....Why couldn't this happen in a Lake?
I'm sure the evolution of lamprologus species involves some hybridization!!!

I've said bivitattum....but that is an indication as to type....actual variant???
I've had a few Notho's....Love to give them another go...but currently rationalising my collection to reflect my time available to look after them properly.
looking to decrease species atm!!!
Perhaps when I retire?
 

killiguy

Member
Messages
48
Location
Geelong australia
I've said bivitattum....but that is an indication as to type....actual variant???

We have several populations in Australia we try and keep separated.Several are of unknown origin and may be different species(Chromaphyosemion having been divided into more and more species)We also have the form from Funge Cameroon
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
I'd be pretty sure it isn't a hybrid, natural or otherwise, there are undoubtedly a lot more cryptic species of Lamprologine Cichlids that are still scientifically un-described in the lake.

The situation in Lake Tanganyika is very different from the the other Rift Valley Great Lakes (or Papua New Guinea). Lake Tanganyika is extremely ancient (about 15 million years old), and it is much more comparable to the marine environment than to the more recently formed Lake Victoria, or even Lake Malawi, where the Haplochromine cichlids are still undergoing speciation.

Details are here: <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2997427/>.

cheers Darrel
 

Rod

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
196
Location
Brisbane,Australia
Thanks Darrel....Great link.....Did you read it?
You've actually backed up my suspicions!

A quote from this link.....

Introgressive hybridization upon secondary contact seems to be the most likely cause for paraphyly of taxa due to mtDNA capture in species involving brood-care helpers, while accidental hybridization best explains the para- or polyphyly of several gastropod shell breeders.

This is a link to a mixed breeding pair in the Lake "In the Wild"!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2997427/figure/fig6/

See my point?....;)
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
Rod, I have read the link, but they aren't suggesting that the hybridization is on-going, in fact it is quite the opposite. They are saying that many similar looking species aren't particularly closely related, they look similar due to convergent evolution, rather than because they are sister species that have evolved from a recent common ancestor.

What they are saying is that not all the shell dwellers diverged from a single ancestral form (in which case they would be "monophyletic"), but that the evolution of using snail shells for brood care has occurred more than once during their evolutionary history.

In fact, shell-breeding represents a highly successful evolutionary strategy, which was suggested to have arisen multiple times during the radiation of the lamprologines (Sturmbauer et al., 1994; Koblmüller et al., 2007a).

This all happened some time ago:
Several new lineages formed via adaptive radiation in the lake itself, probably about 5–6 MYA when the proto-lakes fused into one single deep lake with tropical clearwater conditions (Tiercelin and Mondeguer, 1991; Salzburger et al., 2002a; Koblmüller et al., 2008a; but see Genner et al., 2007)

In the case of Neolamprologus christyi × N. modestus these really are sister species and have recently diverged from a common ancestor (they are monophyletic).This is also the situation in Lake Victoria, where all the species are in the process of an active adaptive radiation from a single Haplochromine ancestor, and in most cases can still inter-breed. This is also the case in Lake Malawi, but in that case the differentaition has gone further (the common ancestor was further back in time) and the species are more genetically distinct from one another.

Have a look at this for the closeness of relationships:

gr2.jpg


Hope that makes sense, cheers Darrel
 

Rod

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
196
Location
Brisbane,Australia
Fair enough....but Please read my posts
I did say it was a theory....and I never used the word recent or on going.....that is perhaps your reading something that I didn't say or intend
The paper uses the words "accidental hybridization"....I still don't read that as a rebuttal of my "theory"....quite the opposite!
I'm not saying it's fact(and neither does the paper)...just that it is a possible reason why some variants of brevis have traits that are very different to others

I certainly did not say (or propose) these variants are man made hybrids....hence the comment "natural hybridization"

Hybridization is a valid part of the evolution of species.....even humans may contain genetic code of Neanderthals

I can imagine an accidential spawn....say L meeli males sperm accidentially fertlises a brevis female eggs
some of the fry have the white stripe on the tail....and over the next 100,000+ years that trait is passed through that particular population
and at some point the whole population carrys the trait......they are 99.9% brevis with one trait that evolved from an accident
(this has happened recently with endlers....black bar endlers from Europe have a white dorsal....no wild caught black bar endler has a white dorsal!....so the most likely assumption is they inherited this trait from cross-breeding with guppies)
 

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