Steatocranus sp. "square head" spawn

[Wingsrule]

Not great pics as they won't come out of the breeding log, but pretty excited about these.

 

[tjudy]

Awesome! I wish mine would pop.

 

[Richgrenfell]

Cool!
The only buffalos I have done was casuarius. If these are anything like those you are in for a treat. they had HUNNNDREDS of fry!

 

[tjudy]

sp. Squarehead is interesting. First, it is a cool fish. Second, there is some debate about what it may or may not be. It is quite possible that the fish is S. bleheri, based upon what I have been told about the collection location of both species. The joining of the lateral lines at the caudal peduncle is characteristic of S. bleheri. I have not seen many images of C. bleheri, but the few I have seen do not have the blockhead shape of the sp. 'squarehead'. Maybe the images I have seen of S. bleheri were young fish?

Heiko... if you catch this thread would you please shed some light on this? Here is a link to my images of 'sp. Squarehead'. 'Wingsrule' and I obtained our fish from the same import event, so they came from the same place.

http://www.tedsfishroom.com/wp/imag...es/west-african-cichlids/steatocranus-gallery

 

[Xanathos]

Awesome fish ! I'm quite a Steatocranus enthusiast myself and I can only dream of acquiring this species.

Let me know if you have spare fries and congratulations for your spawn!

Phil

 

[bigbird]

MORNING,

wow what nice and cute shots of the fry and mother.
well done. cheers jk :biggrin:

 

[westafrica]

sp. Squarehead is interesting. First, it is a cool fish. Second, there is some debate about what it may or may not be. It is quite possible that the fish is S. bleheri, based upon what I have been told about the collection location of both species. The joining of the lateral lines at the caudal peduncle is characteristic of S. bleheri. I have not seen many images of C. bleheri, but the few I have seen do not have the blockhead shape of the sp. 'squarehead'. Maybe the images I have seen of S. bleheri were young fish?

Heiko... if you catch this thread would you please shed some light on this? Here is a link to my images of 'sp. Squarehead'. 'Wingsrule' and I obtained our fish from the same import event, so they came from the same place.

http://www.tedsfishroom.com/wp/imag...es/west-african-cichlids/steatocranus-gallery

Hi,

Ted, if you have some more informations about this debate (links, articles...) I would be really interested to get some! Thanks in advance! I have a small group of this sp. and I'm really curious to know as much as possible about them. For now I can say that they are shy and that they like to kill & eat snails. Dave also told me that they can get agressive and also like vegetal food. BTW Dave congrats again on this breeding!

 

[tjudy]

My group was very aggressive with each other when they were all together in a 40 breeder. They also ate all the leaves off of an Anubias barteri. A pair seemed to be settling, so I removed all the others to a different tank. The 'pair' then tried to kill each other. In the other tank another male and female started to cohabitate, but I am afraid to isolate them because I do not want them to split up.

My group was also attacked by some kind of infection. Aquaticclarity (Jeff) got his group at the same time that I did (same source as Dave's) and had the same problem. The infection creates round, whitish sores all over the fish. Nothing seems to cure it. I lost a few to the disease, but the few I have left look clean but have a few scars. I think that water quality is EXTREMELY important with this species.

 

[Nebraska_cichlids]

I got a group of six from the same batch back when. If I remember correctly they came in through Toyin and I placed a joint order with Ted (and probably Jeff). They were sold as S. bleheri but later identified as S. sp. "Square head." My group never exhibited any signs of disease. So far my square heads have been very shy and not overly aggressive. No signs of pairs forming. Interestingly, four of my fish grew like crazy, whereas two other stayed much smaller.

Janos

 

[Wingsrule]

Very interesting to read everyone's observation on this fish. I did not experience any disease, but like most of us, I am particular on my upkeep of my tanks. Anton recommended that I do not split them up when they exhibited pairing behavior and to keep the others in the tank with them. Did Jeff and yourself (ted) get them from Toyin? I did not get mine from him, mine came from a different source. It looks like there are about 40 fry swimming around now.

 

[westafrica]

I agree, very interesting to read about all these experiences. Ted : thanks a lot for answering my interrogations .

Among my 5, only 1 (visibly a male, the tallest) is visible, the others hide despite many visual barriers and tankmates, and despite one is surely a female based on its diplay-like behavior at their arrival in the tank. I suspect that the big tough guy chases them as soon as they get out, I'll try to confirm this this WE. I hope they can find some food...

While we talk about knowledge capitalisation on that sp., do you know the locality where they come from? Dave : do you think they are pair bonding or harem builders? Does the male take part in the fry guarding role?

Thanks in advance!

 

[tjudy]

I forwarded attention to this thread to Heiko Bleher for his comment, and he sent me a PM yesterday:

The Steatocranus you have there piuctures of is most surely Steatocranus sp. "Kisangani" which I collected many (many) years agon and it does not seem to grow very large. But I think Uli Schliewen from Munich has recollected those at its type locality in the Tshopo river (affluent of the Lualaba near Kisangani) and maybe it will finally soon be described.

I, for one, an excited that this genus is FINALLY getting more attention.

 

[Wingsrule]

This is getting interesting now. Anton and Uli think they are definetly sp. bleheri. I sent the pictures to them and Anton has been to the house and seen them in person. I am going to throw Anton an email real quick

 

[Nebraska_cichlids]

These are pictures of the two small Steatocranus that came in as contaminants with my Squarehead (or bleheri). They are about one quarter the size of the Squarehead and darker colored, The latter might be due to the stress caused by sharing a tank with the four much larger fish. All six fish spent most of the day in hiding, which is also the reason for the poor image quality. Perhaps someone has an idea as to the identity of the two small fish?

 

[aquaticclarity]

Most likely they are the sp. dwarf as this is where Ted got his from.

http://forum.apistogramma.com/showthread.php?t=8226

Although due to the differneces in the tanks Ted's fish look lighter in color and yours look much darker (like my cf. casuarius).

Jeff

 

[Wingsrule]

Anton wrote back and he says they are bleheri, so I don't know where that puts us now. The Kisangani look more elongated to me than this species. I have the collection point at home in another email. I will check on that and post again.

 

[Nebraska_cichlids]

If I compare my "Square Head" (or "bleheri") to the images in the cichlid gallery in www.cichlidae.com my fish indeed look exactly like S. bleheri. The bleheriin cichlidae.com were determined by Anton. Moreover, my fish were originally sold as "bleheri" but the ID was uncertain at that time.

I'm still not sure about my two small Steatocranus. They look like the sp. Dwarf depicted in cichlidae.com, but look different than Ted's fish. I contacted Uli Schliewen today, hoping he can enlighten us.

I hope we get this story sorted out soon!

 

[tjudy]

What I was told was the the collection locations for 'Squarehead' and bleheri were different, those close together. The suspicion was that they were likely the same. Since Anton is calling them bleheri now he must have come up with some more information, because a year ago he was not saying that.

The sp. Dwarf I have are adults now. Your fish look like juveniles in the pictures. How long have you had them? I got mine a year ago.

 

[Nebraska_cichlids]

Ted: I'm 99% sure you and I got the fish through a joint order that we placed with Toyin. Of course, with wild-caught fish that doesn't mean they were necessarily the same age. I remember you telling me that you picked 6 fish of different sizes for me when forwarding my share of fish to Nebraska.

Janos

 

[tjudy]

Yes I did, but Toyin had already pulled the fish he saw as being contaminants. One easy to see difference is that the bleheri show the strong dual lateral lines that meet at the caudal peduncle, but the sp. Dwarf do not. The sp. Dwarf, to me, look a lot like a very dimimutive casuarus with bar-blotches and grey faces.

As I type this I can see my 'pair' of sp. Dwarf in the tank across the room sitting peacefully 10 cm away from each other in plain sight. A good sign? I hope so....