Stocking advice needed

[michelle767]

I have a 29 gallon that I've been raising rotkeil severums in. I'm going to empty it out this week, though, and re-plant it (I thought the juvie sevs would leave the plants alone, but no such luck). I've kept rams and a pair of apisto cacatoides in the past.

I have 5 cories in there - who can be moved - and 3 plecos, 2 bristlenose and 1 flash - which I have to keep in there.
Here are the options I have:
1) Get four adoketa and let them pair off. This is what I really want to do, but I don't know if the plecos and adoketa would be compatible. I know the adoketa are fairly aggressive, but I can't seem to find any information about how they do with plecos.
2) A pair of Laetacara dorsigerus and a pair of apistos. Would the dorsigerus be too aggressive for the apistos?
3) Just the dorsigerus pair with the plecos and some dithers.

 

[mf3011]

Opinion and question

In my far from expert opinion, in fact from what I've gathered from this site, a pair of dosigera and apistos would be too much for a 30 unless you had it heavily planted to break up most of the site lines, I'd probably say a pair of dorsigeras or the adoketas would be your best bet. I would think your plecos would be ok with adoketas as they are pretty tough for the most part, but again, I am not an expert. Good luck, and I hope you enjoy! Sounds like whatever you do it's going to be an awesome tank!

As for my question, do you have any pictures of your Rotkeil sevs? They are a fish very high on my wishlist and I'd love to see some pics if you had any. Also, I've heard that they look like normal severums as juvies and only develop the redhead as they grow. What's your experience? Hope you don't mind me asking, just curious! Take care!

Mike

 

[michelle767]

Thanks for the input. Gah...I still can't decide, though the narrowing of the field does help.

Re: the sevs - Sevs in general are my favorite fish (geos and my leopard ctenopoma are next), and the rotkeils are stunning. Last year I bought a small juvie pair (a little under 3") and a med. sized wild pair (at about 5"), whose offspring I've been raising. In my experience, they don't start showing the red until between 3" and 4". The juvies, around 1.5", still aren't showing.

Here's a pic of their father:

I ended up giving this pair away as the other pair have better colors. From everything I've been reading, the rotkeils aren't expected to get as large as other severums, topping out at about 7-8".

 

[mf3011]

Nice!

Severums are one of my favorites too, that's why I asked! Great pic and man can I not wait to have a pair of those beauties! That's interesting what you said about them being a little shorter in length, and good for me for future tank considerations! Thanks for the reply, that's what I heard too, and after seeing some juvies at a store labeled as rotkeil that didn't show any red, it all makes sense now. Glad I could be of a little help at least, it's nice to have such options though huh? Anyways, thanks again and good luck!

 

[mf3011]

One more thing!

I just thought of another question. I see that you said that your other pair had better colors, I've seen through pictures that rotkeils differ widely in how much red they have in the face. Are there different types of rotkeil, or just each fish shows a different amount of red?

 

[michelle767]

As far as I know, there's no way to predict how much red the rotkeils will have. I've seen pictures of rotkeils where they show a lot of red and others where they don't. The best thing to do is get them from a reputable vendor or from a source where you can see the parents.

In my case, I decided to keep the younger pair for two reasons. The wild female had no red at all, while my younger female does have a little bit herself. And my wild male, as you can see in the pic, had yellow dorsal, ventral, anal fins, while my younger male's has more variation (orange and yellow) in his.

Subtle differences, though. Almost all look great!