Today in Sonny's Fishroom: letourneauxi in spawning color

[Sonny Disposition]

Hemichromis letourneauxi in spawning color. This is the smaller of the two that are tolerating each other and sharing the space. I'm guessing it's the female, but I don't know.

 

[cabinetmkr39]

Gr8 looking fish Bob

 

[F8LBITE]

awesome looking fish Bob!

 

[SubMariner]

Sweet!

 

[SubMariner]

Today in Sonny's fish room!

 

[Sonny Disposition]

Thanks guys. They don't look like that all the time--just when they're spawning.

 

[SubMariner]

Thought you'd find the Christopher Walken pix humorous.

 

[Sonny Disposition]

I did, actually. Where did you find them?

 

[UNCLERUCKUS]

nice color sonny.

 

[Sonny Disposition]

Thanks DQ. Do the Lifalilli change color like that before they spawn?

I had no idea the genus had so many members until I brought the letourneauxi home from Pembroke Pines. In case anyone is interested, here's a link to a German Web site that lists photos of the group's members.

http://www.thomas-pritzkow.de/Aqua/Galerie/Bilder10.html

 

[ltrepeter2000]

Wow Elongatus sure looks mean in the second photo.....Nice fish. Looking at those photos, I now officially have no idea which I have at home. Mine most closely resemble the sp. Blue Neon. Mine have that striking blue color.

 

[Sonny Disposition]

I'm guessing they're all mean, whether they look it or not.

Well, at least we know now that we probably have different species, not different varieties, and shouldn't mix them.

Wow Elongatus sure looks mean in the second photo.....Nice fish. Looking at those photos, I now officially have no idea which I have at home. Mine most closely resemble the sp. Blue Neon. Mine have that striking blue color.

 

[F8LBITE]

Bob, I remember a while back you started a thread about collecting fish in the canals in florida like that Pleco in the other thread and I was wondering are those fish natives? Or did they somewhere along the line get released in there?

 

[Sonny Disposition]

No, they're definitely not natives. Florida is just one big soup of weird exotics. If you can't make it to the tropics, go to Florida, where the tropics will meet you halfway. Stinging fire ants from South America. (Don't ask me how I discovered those.) Parrots. Strange lizards (even the Geico Gecko.) Beagle-eating pythons. A duck that looks a little like a vulture. Suckermouthed cats, the occasional Clarias and swamp eel, as well as numerous weird, mostly nasty, cichlids in the canals that crisscross the lower half of the state.

Worth the trip if you can make it. Stop in at La Carreta for lunch. It's a chain all over South Florida. Cubans know food better than anyone and we all have a lot we can learn from them.

Bob, I remember a while back you started a thread about collecting fish in the canals in florida like that Pleco in the other thread and I was wondering are those fish natives? Or did they somewhere along the line get released in there?

 

[F8LBITE]

sounds like it would be really cool.

 

[Sonny Disposition]

Except for the fireants, it is. It's terrible for the environment though. The Everglades is a harsh, nutrient poor environemnt. Things that belong there don't need the competition from species that don't belong there. There aren't too many things nastier or more prolific than a salvini cichlid. Fire ants, maybe.

sounds like it would be really cool.

 

[ltrepeter2000]

You can say that again....I have a pair thats in breeding colors right now of the Salvini....had to put them in their own tank....they were even beating the convicts up.

 

[Sonny Disposition]

Yeah, they're killers. I only keep them because I like the spawning colors, and because they're really fantastic parents. Mine assasinated flag fish and even cories, which escape the attention of a lot of other cichlids.

 

[Sonny Disposition]

Except for an occasional fish farm escape, I think most exotic fish are in Florida because they either grew too big (plecos and jaguar cichlids) or are too nasty (salvini and letourneauxi) or both (uropthalmus.) Their owners, couldn't handle them, and, obviously not having too much on the ball, turned them loose in the canals out back.

I don't know which are meaner--red terrors or uropthalmus. A nasty family, I guess.

You can say that again....I have a pair thats in breeding colors right now of the Salvini....had to put them in their own tank....they were even beating the convicts up.