Extravaganza auction

[skinner766]

First off great job everyone! The auction was awesome. I know this is a long shot since i do not have the bag with the info on it anymore but I was wondering if there was a way to figure out who sold the acei juvies yesterday at the auction. Was mainly curious to know what collection point they are. I bought a bag of them that had been rebagged and ended up losing the bag with the seller's info on it. The acei look to be different than normal.

[LewC]

I'm sorry, but unless you know the seller letters, we'd have no way of knowing. There is no "normal" for acei. They look different from location to location around Lake Malawi. To make things worse, there are actually 2 or 3 species that go by that name in the hobby.

Post a picture, and I'll see if I can try to narrow it down a bit for you.

Lew Carbone

[skinner766]

What I ment by normal was, the yellow tail purple bodied acei. As far as i can tell there are only two common acei in the hobby, the yellow tailed and white tailed acei. The ones i bought sunday dont seem to be either. I will try and post a pic. They have not colored up fully yet however they seem to have some black on the edges of their fins unlike my other acei.

[skinner766]

here is best pic I can get atm water is alittle cloudy just rescaped and did water change.

[skinner766]

here are a couple better pics

[LewC]

Those look most like Pseudotropheus elegans, a species often called "Acei", and confused with it. Here's a link to the profile on CRC:
http://www.cichlidae.com/species.php?id ... es#content

[skinner766]

Main thing I am concerned with is getting a proper id so that if they spawn I will be able to sell the fry and not be passing them off as somthing else. Either way I will grow them out and once they are mature try and get a better idea of what they are. Seems like the males are goin to be only ones with color atleast thats what I am seeing now.

[skinner766]

also came across this species as well they look pretty close to what I have, what do you think? http://www.cichlidae.com/species.php?id=1321

[LewC]

I just checked my brand new copy of Ad's 5th edition Malawi book, and I'm even more sure it's P. elegans. They look alot like G. moorii and the 2 species live close together. The easiest thing to see that distinguishes the 2 species is dark bands on the lower edges of the pelvic, anal and caudal fins, edged in white. Your fish have that.

[skinner766]

What about female colors? i cant see the full profile of the elegans and there is not alot of info on other sites about them.

[LewC]

It would be very similar, maybe a bit duller.

[skinner766]

The main reason I am thinking moorii is because of the female/juvie colors of them look like the uncolored fish in my group, they are brownish with a dark line running length of body. I will try and get a few decent pis of what I think are females and post them.

[skinner766]

here is a pic of one the females ( atleast not colored)

[LewC]

I do see the similarity to G. moorrii, with the light color females and that single large eggspot on the males. Are they breeding size?

[skinner766]

not quite breeding size yet, though they are getting close i think. Biggest male is about 2 1/2 inches without tail.

[deeda]

Lew, is it possible that since the fish were re-bagged that the seller was charged a fee for that service? I don't think there were even a dozen bags of re-bagged fish so that may help narrow it down if the club notes that type of fee on the seller sheet or payment invoice. Just a thought!

Sorry I can't help with the fish ID.