Rift Lake Cichlids
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Anyone keep Otopharynx lithobates?

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Micheal
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Post by cancichfan Fri Feb 26, 2010 12:17 am

Just wondering if anyone has these. I have 6 in my 90 gallon tank (along with a bunch of other stuff) and I am curious if there is a way to tell the males from the females. I got the first one early on and really liked it and bought 5 more trying to get a better M:F ratio. At the time they were all little greenish underfed fish.
The first is obviously a male and he is colouring up nicely. Prominent yellow strip and a lot of blue beginning to show on his face and sides. Very pretty fish and my favourite in that tank.
But, the other 5 were smaller and aren't really showing any appreciable colour at all yet. One thing that I find interesting is that many of them do not have the yellow dorsal tips that the first one had but rather have more of an orange/peach coloured fin tip. Does this mean anything? They all came out of tank labelled O. lithobates "Yellow Blaze" but they were a couple months apart so who knows what was in there.
I guess my biggest question is: Do the females have any colour or what do they look like? I hope that at least some of the ones I have are female because I would like to see these breed.

Here's what the male looked like recently. I don't yet have a good shot of the unknown ones. I will work on getting one tomorrow.
Anyone keep Otopharynx lithobates? IMG_1193
Here's what he looked like a couple months ago. Much more blue developing which is why I believe this to be a male.
Anyone keep Otopharynx lithobates? IMG_1119
Also notice how he only swims from right to left? I wonder how he gets back to the other side of the tank...
Thanks
Graham

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Post by Micheal Fri Feb 26, 2010 12:29 am

The males will have the blue color and the females will not. The females will stay the drab brown color with the black dots. I have one male with 3 females but I don't have expirence with more than one male so I'm not sure what coloration the subdominate male will take if you have more than one.
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Post by Micheal Fri Feb 26, 2010 12:33 am

Also my male is about 5 to 6 inches and the females are maybe 4 inches with not near the height size.
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Post by moka Fri Feb 26, 2010 1:29 am

i have 6, two are 3" the rest are under 3", one started showing very little blue and to my suprize the female is holding today, they have not even colored up like yours yet, yours look very nice

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Post by cancichfan Fri Feb 26, 2010 8:10 pm

moka wrote:yours look very nice
Thank you. As this one gets better colour and better fins it has certainly become my favourite.

Here's a shot of one of the smaller ones and I hope you can see the colour difference in the fins. Look at the tips. Is this a different variant of the species? All of them have some colour on the fin tips, either yellow or this shade. Do I have all males? That is going to make breeding a bit trickier...
Anyone keep Otopharynx lithobates? IMG_1220

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Post by Splash Fri Feb 26, 2010 9:48 pm

No that's exactly how our females look with the color on the dorsal tips.
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Post by cancichfan Sat Feb 27, 2010 1:00 pm

Splash! wrote:No that's exactly how our females look with the color on the dorsal tips.

Thanks. That makes me feel better.

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Post by Micheal Sat Feb 27, 2010 4:35 pm

If you want to see the difference between male and female check out this link.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/species.php?id=2293
Under the picture in the drop down menu for images select the "Pair"
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Post by football mom Fri Mar 05, 2010 9:04 pm

How long does it take them to get to, say 4 inches?

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Post by Micheal Fri Mar 05, 2010 9:45 pm

I'm not sure J but when mine get to 4 inches I will let you know lol.
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Post by cancichfan Sat Mar 06, 2010 12:26 am

Same here...I got mine from the LFS at a scrawny 2 or so and it's been several months to get to 3. They are slow growers.

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Post by football mom Sat Mar 06, 2010 11:08 am

The ones I got from you, Micheal, are growing, slowly. A couple are much larger, males, maybe?
No blue showing yet, though.

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Post by Micheal Tue Mar 09, 2010 9:08 pm

They do grow slower than mbuna. I have Saulosi that have already grown enough to breed that are the same age as the fry you got.
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Post by Micheal Wed Apr 28, 2010 2:14 pm

Some of my fry have started to color up so I can tell the males. They are about 3 inches and so far 3 have colored up out of 30 something fry.
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Post by FedEXguy Fri Apr 30, 2010 9:03 am

One of mine just started coloring up, but as you can see in my avatar pic, he's got a pure white blaze, even though all of his siblings have the beginnings of yellow/orange blazes. I'm wondering if I have hybrid fish, or if I have the Mumbo Island variant, since I mail-ordered from a larger dealer. Who knows? They look stunning either way, and I'm looking forward to seeing your fish growing up along with my own.
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Post by cancichfan Fri Apr 30, 2010 9:28 am

Mine's coloured up a bit more but nothing like yours. It seems to have stopped growing/maturing for some reason. Maybe just slowing down. I've got some others in the tank that are almost as big but no colour. Maybe females but could be subordinate males. Interesting fish either way.

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Post by FedEXguy Fri Apr 30, 2010 9:37 am

Mine went from being just hinting at colors to very nearly full-on breeding colors in just under a week. He has been diligently grooming a rock showing his stuff to the females, except one, that he always chases off. So I'm guessing that one is a sub-dominant male. They all range about the 3 inch mark with a few a bit over and one about a half-inch under.
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Post by FedEXguy Fri Apr 30, 2010 10:18 am

I put together a comparison shot of the same fish 3 months apart and scaled it approximately for size. I dunno if you'll find it helpful, but it's cool to see the difference so short a time makes.

Anyone keep Otopharynx lithobates? 3month_comparison
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