Steatocranus sp. "square head" spawn

[Heiko Bleher]

Hi,

great photos and to me this is S. bleheri, hardly any dought.

Keep up the good work,

always

Heiko
www.aquapress-bleherr.com

 

[Nebraska_cichlids]

Now that Heiko re-opened the old thread, I'll give a quick update on where I stand with my bleheri: I acquired another five (juvenile) bleheri through a Red Eye/bleheri trade with "Wingsrule." (Thanks, D., the fish are doing great.) Turned out that I also have at least one pair in my group of four adult bleheri. The two grew pretty attached to each other, and I'm optimistic that good news is right around the corner.

I isolated the pair of sp. Dwarf (?) several weeks ago and gave them their own tank. They are doing fine but are still way smaller than the bleheri received in the same shipment.

 

[tjudy]

The sp. Squarehead is being ID's by everyone I trust to really know as S. bleheri. The fish that I got that I thought were S. sp. Dwarf are not, according to Anton L. But he does not knwo what they are. Compared to his sp. Dwarf my fish are larger and have more elongated dorsal and anal fins... but are still a LOT smaller than a S. casuarius (which they look like). My over 2-year-old male is just 3" long including his caudal. Anton suggests that what we get in as S. casuarius may actually be a species complex. Jeff had a S. casuarius for a while that we thought was gibbiceps. but it was not. But is was also very different than the classic S. casuarius (which the experts ID'd it as). Steatocranus are still very much a mystery.