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Species and sex id ?

Frank Hättich

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My comments about black spot locations are based off of comparing the photo i provided with the images on Tom's site.

View attachment 15122View attachment 15123

This is the other species that is either ladisalo or wolli (I thought they were wolli); i believe it is a male and is approx 1 inch in size.
The two rows of abdominal spots which reach to the anterior part of the belly is something seen more regularly on A. wolli.
The female look very much like the female picture #6 on tom's site with 3 black lateral spots.
Can you please show a picture of your female showing 3 lateral spots? Like Tom's females wolli females in general merely show a single lateral spot.
 

anewbie

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The two rows of abdominal spots which reach to the anterior part of the belly is something seen more regularly on A. wolli.

Can you please show a picture of your female showing 3 lateral spots? Like Tom's females wolli females in general merely show a single lateral spot.

This post shows her with three spots; as i noted it is nearly identical to Tom's female wolli picture #6 (i admit the other pictures dont' show 3):


 

Frank Hättich

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This post shows her with three spots; as i noted it is nearly identical to Tom's female wolli picture #6 (i admit the other pictures dont' show 3):
She merely shows a single lateral spot. The spot in front of the caudal fin is the caudal spot and the one at the base of the pectoral fin is the pectoral spot/blotch. Mike already said that she looks like his wolli females and I don't see anything that speaks against wolli either.
 

anewbie

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1,717
She merely shows a single lateral spot. The spot in front of the caudal fin is the caudal spot and the one at the base of the pectoral fin is the pectoral spot/blotch. Mike already said that she looks like his wolli females and I don't see anything that speaks against wolli either.
Well the whole issue of species was if the blue male was wolli then i had no clue what these other fishes are but I guess maybe it isn't wolli but very close to wolli; i'm sorry i'm probaby making a confusing situation more confusing.

I guess the open question then is if the blue male is a wolli.
---
also i'm confused about the three spot thing what i'm calling three spots are the one near the head; one in the middle and one at the tail.
 

Mike Wise

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anewbie, If your fish look like those on TomC's site, listed as A. wolli, then they most likely are.

A little history: In 2012 Tom & I went looking for A. cf. payaminonis in the Rio Napo drainage border area between Peru and Ecuador. A Peruvian collector had brought in a specimen to Stingray Aquarium (an exporter) and the owner funded a trip to collect more. Due to the loss of the boat and fish the attempt was unsuccessful. Tom, me and our friend Julio Melgar decided to try finding it ourselves. We hired Albertino Maco Ausber and his crew to help. After many failed attempts - and $800 in fuel - we found them on our last day in the area. Tom & I split the collection and left some with Albertino, who later exported them. Tom informed Dr. Uwe Römer of the location. Uwe had his own collectors find more fish, which he used to describe A. wolli. So Tom and my fish are from the same location as Römer's A. wolli.

Your fish, solely based on all of the species that were exported, I'm fairly certain that Albertino and his crew collected your fish, since he collected most if not all of them originally, knew where to find them and was in the Peru/Ecuador border area at the time.

I can understand now your confusion about "lateral spots". We apistophile nerds use scientific terms to describe the various dark markings on apistos. Most are from Dr. Kullander's 1980 monograph, but more have been added as time went by. You might be interested in reading https://www.tomc.no/page.aspx?PageID=116, which provides a discussion of the terms used for features on apistos.
 

anewbie

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1,717
anewbie, If your fish look like those on TomC's site, listed as A. wolli, then they most likely are.

A little history: In 2012 Tom & I went looking for A. cf. payaminonis in the Rio Napo drainage border area between Peru and Ecuador. A Peruvian collector had brought in a specimen to Stingray Aquarium (an exporter) and the owner funded a trip to collect more. Due to the loss of the boat and fish the attempt was unsuccessful. Tom, me and our friend Julio Melgar decided to try finding it ourselves. We hired Albertino Maco Ausber and his crew to help. After many failed attempts - and $800 in fuel - we found them on our last day in the area. Tom & I split the collection and left some with Albertino, who later exported them. Tom informed Dr. Uwe Römer of the location. Uwe had his own collectors find more fish, which he used to describe A. wolli. So Tom and my fish are from the same location as Römer's A. wolli.

Your fish, solely based on all of the species that were exported, I'm fairly certain that Albertino and his crew collected your fish, since he collected most if not all of them originally, knew where to find them and was in the Peru/Ecuador border area at the time.

I can understand now your confusion about "lateral spots". We apistophile nerds use scientific terms to describe the various dark markings on apistos. Most are from Dr. Kullander's 1980 monograph, but more have been added as time went by. You might be interested in reading https://www.tomc.no/page.aspx?PageID=116, which provides a discussion of the terms used for features on apistos.
That is the 2nd group but do you still feel that blue male i took a photo of is a. wolli or something else as Frank suggested might be the case - it does not look like tom's a. wolli in that it is missing the black spot at the base of the tail and the females are different per the picture i supplied between the two pictures of the male. However while i am calling out these differences i don't know if they are indication of another species or cosmetic.

As for the ones we presume are a. wolli there is definitely male with colouring as i saw it this morning but again it was just a brief glance before it hid again so i could not observe any real details of the fish. I do hope at a future date it becomes more exposed so i can take pictures and compare it to the other blue male.
 

Mike Wise

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I don't consider color that important in species identification for most apistos. Among my A. wolli offspring produced over the past 12 years some males are more blue, some less. Also color can vary depending how the fish has been lighted/photographed. If the fish were sold as A. wolli and look like A. wolli, then most likely they are A. wolli. Please, don't obsess of minor differences.
 

anewbie

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I don't consider color that important in species identification for most apistos. Among my A. wolli offspring produced over the past 12 years some males are more blue, some less. Also color can vary depending how the fish has been lighted/photographed. If the fish were sold as A. wolli and look like A. wolli, then most likely they are A. wolli. Please, don't obsess of minor differences.
Mike - they were sold as a. ladisalo - i never said anything about colour - Frank post mentioned that he was unsure it was a. wolli; i said the major difference i saw was lack of a cadual black spot which Tom's picture have - I said blue only to identify the picture i was talking about.

My question is the cadual spot species identifying on this male or cosmetic and some wolli lack it.

Fyi: the female with fry is in a different aquarium and those were sold as a. wolli unless the seller mixed up the two species.
 

Frank Hättich

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Germany
Mike - they were sold as a. ladisalo - i never said anything about colour - Frank post mentioned that he was unsure it was a. wolli;
I think some clarifications might be helpful: I never was unsure whether your wolli were actually Ladislao or vice versa. In regard to the wolli I was unsure whether they might been one of the other wolli-like species (i.e. A. payaminonis and A. sp. D3) and in regard to your Ladislao I was unsure which of the Ladislao-like species they are (i.e. Ladislao, Ladislao 2, Ladislao 3, A. sp. Amaya or A. sp. Maca). Since your brooding wolli female showed a single lateral spot, the other wolli-like options were effectively ruled out. So your wolli are in fact wolli.
i said the major difference i saw was lack of a cadual black spot which Tom's picture have - I said blue only to identify the picture i was talking about.

My question is the cadual spot species identifying on this male or cosmetic and some wolli lack it.
All wolli-like as well as all Ladislao-like species can - depending on mood - show a caudal spot or not. That your "blue male" (from posts #46, #51 and #54) doesn't show it, is therefore not relevant. Moreover, I agree with Mike that the blue color of the body is not relevant here either - particularly because all the species/forms mentioned so far can or can not show a more or less blue body.
However, as I have said above, I'm 100% sure that your blue male is not A. wolli but rather one of the Ladislao-like species. As I have explained in post #57, for me the width/shape and positioning of the red/orange areas in the caudal fin is sufficient to rule out the possibility that it might be A. wolli.
 

anewbie

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I think some clarifications might be helpful: I never was unsure whether your wolli were actually Ladislao or vice versa. In regard to the wolli I was unsure whether they might been one of the other wolli-like species (i.e. A. payaminonis and A. sp. D3) and in regard to your Ladislao I was unsure which of the Ladislao-like species they are (i.e. Ladislao, Ladislao 2, Ladislao 3, A. sp. Amaya or A. sp. Maca). Since your brooding wolli female showed a single lateral spot, the other wolli-like options were effectively ruled out. So your wolli are in fact wolli.

All wolli-like as well as all Ladislao-like species can - depending on mood - show a caudal spot or not. That your "blue male" (from posts #46, #51 and #54) doesn't show it, is therefore not relevant. Moreover, I agree with Mike that the blue color of the body is not relevant here either - particularly because all the species/forms mentioned so far can or can not show a more or less blue body.
However, as I have said above, I'm 100% sure that your blue male is not A. wolli but rather one of the Ladislao-like species. As I have explained in post #57, for me the width/shape and positioning of the red/orange areas in the caudal fin is sufficient to rule out the possibility that it might be A. wolli.
Ok - thank you for the clarification Frank. the reason I kept hammering on this issue is because i was unsure if either i or the seller had mixed the names up and I thought Mike said it was like is a. wolli. I partially panicked because the seller sent me one more pair with some other fishes and i wanted to make sure that i did not cross the two species (the a. ladisalo are in a 40B and a 2nd pair has a reasonable chance of co-existing and if not i can add a divider. The a. wolli (where i have not seen the coloured up male yet) are in a 29 and while they have been very passive to the 2nd male to this point i would not add more fishes to that aquarium esp with the brooding female.
 

anewbie

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@Frank Hättich one other question - is it likely that there will be any sort of deeper analysis on the 4 species of 'Ladislao' to determine if they are the same species or different species and then renamed to reduce confusion ? I'm not sure how things work with genus apsitogramma; i know it took a very long time for a more complete analysis of corydoras which was recently done so i'm not expecting much but this is very confusing to me. It is even more unclear to me how closely related this fish is to a. wolli. I will note that they are very people friendly (maybe too friendly).
 

Frank Hättich

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@Frank Hättich one other question - is it likely that there will be any sort of deeper analysis on the 4 species of 'Ladislao' to determine if they are the same species or different species and then renamed to reduce confusion ? I'm not sure how things work with genus apsitogramma; i know it took a very long time for a more complete analysis of corydoras which was recently done so i'm not expecting much but this is very confusing to me.
A deeper analysis of the Ladislao-like species (including DNA) will probably happen only when one of them is scientifically described. Since only very few scientists are working on the genus and there are hundreds of species awaiting their scientific description, I do not expect this to happen within my lifetime (but maybe I'm a bit too pessimistic ;-)).
It is even more unclear to me how closely related this fish is to a. wolli.
They all belong to the nijsseni-group. Within this group, I think that A. wolli is certainly much closer related to A. payaminonis and A. sp. D3 and probably less closely related to A. nijsseni and A. panduro than it is to the Ladislao forms.
 

anewbie

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A deeper analysis of the Ladislao-like species (including DNA) will probably happen only when one of them is scientifically described. Since only very few scientists are working on the genus and there are hundreds of species awaiting their scientific description, I do not expect this to happen within my lifetime (but maybe I'm a bit too pessimistic ;-)).

They all belong to the nijsseni-group. Within this group, I think that A. wolli is certainly much closer related to A. payaminonis and A. sp. D3 and probably less closely related to A. nijsseni and A. panduro than it is to the Ladislao forms.
forget it - i think it is mislabelled
 

anewbie

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These wolli are really perplexing me. I have 3 or 4 1 inch fishes in there. The only one i see on a regular basis is a 1 inch colourless male who is terrified of the female but shows himself when i feed the fishes. Their is a 2nd one that i'm not sure is a male or female because it has never fully exposed itself who is also terrified of the female. Yet the female has bred a 2nd time - i only noticed it because she got just above the driftwood and i noticed some frys with her - i have no clue if the hatch a month ago or an hour ago though they are quite small so i suspect they are no more than a day or two old. I did put in some bbs for them - but it is hard to feed them without know where in the tank they are (this is a 29); i have no clue who the father is or for sure what the sexes are of the other fishes. The 4th one i havent' seen a hint in a long time so maybe it died but given that i went a month before seeing #3 i'm not sure. The other thing is with other pair forming the male/female relationship seemed more cordial - here whoever the male is that is breeding with her he wants nothing to do with fry raising or with her while she has frys. With my a. ladisalso the male and female are always together (and of course they never hide). Conversely they haven't bred yet (i think) but the female has coloured up. She snaps at anyone but the male who frequently is in close proxmity.
 

anewbie

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I decided to post a picture to show the layout:

t2.jpg


So B is drawn high but it is the drift wood. When i first received all 5 fishes they each dug little pits under the drift wood and i could now and then see a couple by using a mirror but when i put the mirror behind the aquarium they would go deeper under the driftwood. One soon died and i believe it had a locked jaw as i saw it just before it died and the jaw was locked in the same position as where it was when i first received the fishes. I never really saw the other 4 much. Eventually when the female (B) bred a fish that looks like a young male moved to A` on the right side behind the sponge filter; a month later i briefly saw a fish label (C) who now hides between the two leaves near the front - i will once every 2 or 3 weeks see his nose poke out and once when i turned my back i saw him dashout grab food and return. Fish A always ran from it. I believe fish A has gained 1/4 of an inch and is a bit over an inch now (it is the 2nd picture). The female is not pictured here - the driftwood sticks up about 2 to 3 inches and she stays behind it only occasionally raising just above it or partially above it when i am looking. She has a good size spawn and i fed them more bbs (though i'm limited because i'm also feeding the a. sp bluktei bbs).

This is a picture of what i presume is a male. The tank has quite a strong tannis so it might have more colouring than shows in the picture; though i'm not sure it is actually the male breeding with the female.

t1.jpg
 

anewbie

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Here is another picture of the male that shows a hint of blue (he is closer to the glass so less tannis); however the tail doesn't show any of the lining that i would expect; maybe when it gets larger.

t3.jpg
 

rasmusW

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Hi!

I’m not sure if you are asking for advice on your setup or if you just comment on what you see… -so, i’m giving my 2 cent on the layout.
I think you should either add a lot more floaters, Slack up some wood, add pothos or dim the light in some way. Your tank is very open in more than 2/3 of the hight.
I think that would help the fish, come out more.

-r
 

anewbie

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Hi!

I’m not sure if you are asking for advice on your setup or if you just comment on what you see… -so, i’m giving my 2 cent on the layout.
I think you should either add a lot more floaters, Slack up some wood, add pothos or dim the light in some way. Your tank is very open in more than 2/3 of the hight.
I think that would help the fish, come out more.

-r
There are a bunch of frogbit on the top they dont' show in the picture but you can see some of the roots hanging down at the top of the image. the tank is 18 inches high as a standard 29. Mike said his samples were very out going so not sure if i should be patient or not. I do have a large piece of spider wood i could put in that i was going to use with another aquarium but quite frankly i was hopeful to fill in a lot of the open space with plants (they do take a *long* time to grow). This tank has very little in the way of dithers. Long term I plan on adding 4 to 6 otto and 4 to 8 more marilynae but the marilynae have been very difficult to find. I have a few more pieces of drift wood and one of these days i'll go through and see if any of them will fit - the issue is that large piece in the middle makes it difficult to fit in something that won't disturb the plants. Of the 6 species i currently own this is the only one i'm having problems with - that doesn't mean executing your suggestions wouldn't resolve the issue - i could put in more leaves of course but that wouldn't help the mid area much. Maybe i'll redo the layout after the frys get larger - right now i don't want to muck with it too much while she has a brood. I'd been reluctant to dig things up to check on the other fishes due to causing excess stress but maybe when the frys are larger i should remove the center piece of driftwood and add some more smaller pieces that will allow me to easily obtain some height in the structure.
 
Last edited:

dw1305

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Hi all,
put in that i was going to use with another aquarium but quite frankly i was hopeful to fill in a lot of the open space with plants (they do take a *long* time to grow).
I agree with @rasmusW, a <"lot more plants"> would help.

As well as a quick growing plant (Ceratopteris thalictroides?) for "now", I would actually recommend plants that "take a long time to grow", like <"Cryptocoryne spp., Bolbitis heudelotii and Anubias barteri">.

The reason for this is that once they've grown in the fill the gaps up and need very little maintenance, the same applies to moss, you can never have too much.

cheers Darrel
 

anewbie

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Hi all,

I agree with @rasmusW, a <"lot more plants"> would help.

As well as a quick growing plant (Ceratopteris thalictroides?) for "now", I would actually recommend plants that "take a long time to grow", like <"Cryptocoryne spp., Bolbitis heudelotii and Anubias barteri">.

The reason for this is that once they've grown in the fill the gaps up and need very little maintenance, the same applies to moss, you can never have too much.

cheers Darrel
i have some pearl weed i can add while i wait for the other stuff to spread. The plants i have in there should eventually fill the aquarium but it will take a year. Btw a lot of crypts require hard water so one has to be picky about which one goes into the aquarium - i do have some anubias and crypts in there. The only plant you mentioned that i'm not familiar with growth rate is Ceratopteris thalictroides. Btw i'm not disagreeing with what you said but it takes a while for these things to grow. My goto fast grower is hornworth but it prefers hard water. The cabomba in there is actually showing the most growth so far.
 

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