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