Tanganyika Clown fishes

Q&A About Lake Tanganyika Cichlids

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santos
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Joined: Wed Jan 23, 2013 2:11 am

Tanganyika Clown fishes

Post by santos »

Hey there.
There is a lot af confusions at the moment about the species descriptions of the clown fishes. How many species they are divided in, where the single species come from and look like? And do the cross breed, if you for instance keep E.Marksmithii wih E.Cyn Ubwari og E.Cynanostictus. Can you link to some articles on this subject? Thank you :)
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Re: Tanganyika Clown fishes

Post by Pam Chin »

Hi Santos,

There are (3) species of Ertmodus - cyanostictus & marksmithi which are both described, and then there is also the undescribed, sp. ubwari

Here is what Konings has to say about this genus just a couple of months ago.

04-Nov-2012 A New Name in Eretmodus
By Ad Konings
A new Eretmodus species has been described and the author, Warren Burgess, named it after Mark Smith, one of the fellows and curators of this site (congratulations Mark!). The description was published simultaneously in English and in Polish in the magazine “Tanganika Magazyn”. I can’t read Polish but I hope they mentioned that only the English version is to be regarded as the proper description, else we have a problem referring to it. Although it is mentioned that the types of the new species were collected at Makombe in Burundi, there is no date or name of the collector(s) given. The photo of a live specimen that accompanies the description shows a specimen of what Patrick Tawil calls Eretmodus sp. ‘ubwari’ although Burgess claims that his new species represents what I have been referring to as Eretmodus sp. ‘north’. Both these species are recognized as valid on this site. I suspect that the types were not collected by the author or by Mark Smith, but obtained via the aquarium hobby. Patrick Tawil (pers. comm.) tells me that he has seen both species in shipments from Burundi and therefore concludes that both species are found sympatrically. I’m a little less certain about this assumption since I have dived at Makombe and only noticed one species of Eretmodus, i.e. E. sp. ‘north’. Both Patrick and I agree that the type series of E. marksmithi very likely consists of two species and it will be up to others to find out what actually represents this species..

Burgess, Warren. 2012. "A new species of goby cichlid of the genus Eretmodus, E. marksmithi, (Pisces: Cichlidae) from the Northern part of Lake Tanganyika". Tanganika Magazyn. v. 12, pp. 23-31 (crc04601)


So there is still some controversy about these fish, and that is even more of a reason to be sure and keep them separate so if they do breed you are keeping the strain clean and pure. They will cross with each other in a heartbeat.

These are definitely fun cichlids to work with, but they can be mean little buggers, and most try to get a pair and house them in a Tanganyikan community type tank.

Hope this helps.
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