Umbee vs. Dovii SHOWDOWN!!!!!

[REC]

I recently bought a trio of dovii's at the LFS that are aprox. 2.5 inches hoping to get at least 1 male. They were the biggest 3 of their batch so even though in most cases it means **** i still hoped 1 would be male. Anyways the thread on WW got me into re-thinking on maybe getting a umbee for my 180 rather then a wolf so today i was in the fish store and they just got in a batch of umbee's so damnit i couldnt resist.... 1 out of the i'd say 40 fry had a good inch on the rest of them and it was beating the hell out of the other fry at on 2inches long so i grabbed it hoping its a male.... Right now i have a 55gal with a divider with 3 2.5 dovii's on one side and 1 2.5 umbee on the other. I have a 29 that i set up with 60 feeder guppies that a smaller then i'd say an inch. I plan to feed them primarily feeders to get there size going. My question is in about a week should i drop the divider and see what happens or should i keep the divider up and wait to see if i have a male umbee? I will have the 180 set-up in about 3 weeks and i have a divider for that too if necessary.

[Alx510]

murder, death, kill, 187. sounds fun. take pics.

[ridether]

Please take my advice. Forget about it.

Dovii’s can cause a lot of damage to other fish. A 3 inch dovii will destroy an 2 inch umbee. Umbee’s seem to get more aggressive when they reach 6 or more inches. So do not expect for an Umbee to compete with a dovii any time soon.3 inch umbee’s are even mistaken as community fish by some. (I know it’s hard to believe -- they are a little tamed when young--) Believe me if something happens to that divider, say good bye to your umbee.

[REC]

I just drove down to renton area today i picked up 2 more umbee so now i have 3 of each.

[zipperfish45]

Are you trying to find a breeder pair of dovii

[REC]

NO........That is the last thing i want......

[CentralMayhem]

hahahah. i have bred dovii a few times in the past and they are tough customers. i wouldnt neccessarily say that umbee juveniles are any more community fish than pretty much any of the juvenile south americans. i have 4 umbees and 4 wild red terrors in my 90 right now and though the terrors are usually the ones to approach the umbees only two of my umbees ever back down and they are the 2 smaller ones. out of my terrors the smallest one with all of the dark bars showing all the time is the biggest aggressor so im assuming it to be the female. i have had dovii in community situations( of course with fish too large to be a mouthful ) until they hit the 3 to 4" point and began wanting to spawn. a lot of juvenile dovii are actually quite shy compared to say juvenile devils or texas cichlids. UNTIL the day when their testosterone level jumps into action they arent fire breathing bastards. i have heard the same of umbees. my 2 biggest HATE eachother and the 2 smallest hate eachother. i would not put them all together in the same tank unless you have lots of dither fish to break up their attention to one another. i have some swordtails in there to provide live food until the umbees are big enough to eat the breeders and i also have 3 red hook silver dollars in the mix. and i believe in order to be an UMBEEvs.DOVII showdown youd have to have the 2 biggest meanest combatants you could find.

[REC]

Mayhem how long before i'll know whether i have male or female...

[CentralMayhem]

mine are all between 1 and 1.5" and i already know i have 2 male and 2 female and i have 3 male festae and one female. you just have to know what you are looking for. and in the earlier post it was the festae being the aggressors, now its the biggest of my umbees and he is chasing everything in the tank. hahahah. all fish are different

[REC]

How do you tell at that small, i've heard on several occasions its damn near impossible until they reach 4+ inches. The 3 i have are about 2-2.5 inches but already have lots of blue spangles below there eyes and on there jaw and some on the lower fins. Maybe i'll grab a digital camera and take pics to see if you can sex them.

[Mourinho18]

I guarantee you that mayhem is going based on how fast they're growing. It's not an exact way of sexing but it's common knowledge that the males typically grow bigger and faster than the females. So in those terms, I could also pick out some of the sexes of my fish, but I wouldn't be sure. :)

Hope that helps.

[CentralMayhem]

when you have bred so many cichlids so many times you begin to see the differences. one of my festae always has HER bars way darker than the rest and she is a lot smaller and the more aggressive of the 4. the males all look the same. as for my umbees, i have 2 that are quite a bit larger than the other 2. they only mess with each other though and dont pay any attention to the 2 smaller ones. the 2 smaller ones go up and school around with my swordtails and silver dollars. the 2 smaller umbees also have their mid spot dark at all times and dont show their whole vertical line where the males either have the full line or nothing at all. i will get some pics as soon as i get a camera and try to do some point outs for ya guys.

[REC]

Well if size is a big determination then i for sure have a male umbee. The group i bought the 3 from were all about 1" smaller then the first one i got. It would chase all the others around and still chases the other 2 i got from the same batch.

[CentralMayhem]

when my two males fight their whole face turns dark. when the females fight they have a dark "tear" under their eyes. my two males do not like eachother but tolerate the females near them, the females are the same way. they do not like eachother. both of my males now rule the roost over all of my festae and get a little more spunky and aggressive every time i watch the tank. if all of your fish are from the same brood it should be fairly simple to tell male from female.

[ridether]

we need pictures...

[CentralMayhem]

you got pictures of your beasts bro? i will get some pics as soon as i get ahold of the camera again. i dont own a digital myself i use my moms. how big are your fish? what size tanks you got? umbee AND dovii, my kind of fish.

[REC]

Yeah i have a 180 that is almost ready for either a male umbee or male wolf. Just growing them out in it with a divider to hopefully get a male umbee or wolf. I bought 3 of each to better my chances. I will get pics of them soon, maybe you can sex them. I also have a FH i want you to identify for me Mayhem. He's in a custom 80 with hella filtration 42-20-22....He's looks like a cross between a ZZ and a Blue Dragon. Right now he's about 4.5 inches. I will get pics of him too soon.

[REC]

Mayhem i was reading what you said earlier in the post about size, dark spot and green spangles throught body. If all this is true then i have a male umbee. He has easily over an inch now over the other 2 in size. And they were the 2nd and 3rd biggest two out of the batch besides him. He has lots of green spangles forming on his face and throughout the side of his body. And the biggest thing is 1 of the smaller 2 always shows nothing but a dark spot on its side which you said meant female. The other smaller 1 shows it sometimes and other times shows nothing at all. But the big one shows a solid black bar down his side all the time. So Mayhem what do you think...........

[roliva]

Don't count on the blue spangles and even the bronze showing up on the face. I am working on my 3rd batch of umbees (from Jeff Rapps). The last two batches were all females (they turned a bright yellow and black dorsal fin when confronting each other). All of the females developed beautiful blue spangles.

Mayhem, interesting point about the dark face vs teardrop. I'll have to keep an eye on that.

[ridether]

Hey, I also bought my Umbee from Jeff. It’s only 6 inches or so but I think it’s a girl. I hope to post a few pic’s next year.

[CentralMayhem]

i never said anything about the blue spangles. all of my fish have very little blue on them at this point. only on their gill plates. my males whole face turns dark and he is WAY more aggressive than anything else in the tank. i had three breeder swordtails in there at the beginning and one got whacked one night. then the second night the second female got it too. so low and behold i awake this morning at about 530 and open the blinds by my aquarium, once the fish started stirrin around i noticed the umbee grab the last swordtail(male) by his gonopodium. so i found the killer. anyways the swordtail was dead the next time i came to the tank an hour later. eye balls and belly hollowed out. one fat and GROWING umbee here. in my experience so far i got an animal for a fish this size. he chases the larger festae and flares at everything. when he gets into it with the other male his mid spot completely vanishes and his face turns very dark. the females only get really dark under their eyes and their mid spot shows all the time very dark. i can see a trace of where the dorsal spot will be on one of the smaller ones and the other three show no dark colors on their dorsal

[REC]

neither did I, i said my largest one was way bigger then the other 2 and was starting to have green spangles on his sides all over not just gill plate. And he always shows a dark line across his body. He is a terror too at only 3 inches..... I'll put like 5 feeder guppies in with the 3 and he will immediately kill and swallow 2. And a couple of times i've seen him just simply pound the others out so they are slower so the two smaller 2" umbees can eat them..

[exzolt]

hey just picked up a dovii the other day got any info about them that u did not see on web

[exzolt]

how big do umbees get i read on web that 1 killed a dovii