Vittatus African Tiger Fish | Deezus

Solid looking Tiger!

Are you sure it's a VATF? Looks a little BATF to me.

sashimimaster said:

Are you sure it's a VATF? Looks a little BATF to me.

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Def not Brevis. If I had to guess upon first guess, I'd say FATF. Brevis has their top fin pulled back more. I was just looking at a Sticky this morning lol. I get lost with FATF/VATF/TATF though lol

That's a TATF. A bit unusually colored, but a tatf none the less.

There is a precident of tanzies having this coloration in blue background, light substrate tanks, which this appears to be. Incidentally, this is also the coloration they show when they're caught in clear water with white sand bottoms in the wild.

The dead giveaway that this isn't a brevis is the fact that the adipose fin is solidly colored. Where it a brevis, it would have a distinct, sharply bordered lighter outer edge on its adipose fin. Tanzies and vittatus lack this.

This fish is a prime example to show why I call tanzies "vittatus heavy". At first glance I thought it may have been a brevis as well. A large, healthy tanzy can approach the beefiness of a brevis or goliath.

As I've said before, a tanzy is a vittatus trying its best to be a goliath...

EDIT-

Deezus said:

I'm positive it's a VATF. I got it from Jeff Rapps 1.5 years ago at 4" when he imported a whole group of VATF.

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That was right about the time when we as a community were just starting to figure out the difference between tatf and vatf, so I'm not surprised to see that it was mislabeled and we certainly can't blame Jeff for it.

Heck, even now it can be nigh impossible to differentiate between the four non-goliaths at small sizes, even for me, and I wrote the guide!


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Deezus said:

I picked this fish up from someone local who kept a confirmed TAFT from Fugupuff and this VATF together. Just asked him to send me old pics with them side by side. Taft Top and "Vatf" bottom. They look different to me what do you think?

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I didn't know Dan was selling his fish. I'll eat crow now. I'm the one who originally confirmed both of those fish.

Well that changes things. Looking at full sized, high res pics on my computer as opposed to nickle sized pics on my broke ass phone, I can see pretty clearly that your fish only has two scales between his pelvic fin insertion and the lateral line. If it was a tanzaniae, it would have three or four. This is the primary diagnostic feature used by Brewster (1986) to determine that Hydrocynus tanzaniae was distinct from vittatus.

Your fish is the first time I've ever seen a vittatus show those tanzaniae like colors. I saw the coloration and just rolled with what I've known from the past. First time for everything I guess. Learning stuff like this is what keeps the hobby fresh for me.

Hey, I'm human too...

Man that is one pretty fish.......

How big of a tank is it in?????