What's the rarest fish of this genus?

[Hybridfish7]

On this week's episode of "what's the rarest fish of that genus", I am wondering, what is the rarest species of the amatitlania genus? My guess is altoflava or one of the newer ones like coatepeque.
And now we wait to see if anyone more educated on the subject has any input.

 

[newworld]

A few years back I caught /spawned/distributed coatepeque to the hobby also a few years back it was redescribed as nigrogasciatus I believe, regardless it’s an attractive strain..

 

[jonclark96]

I had some of Sam's coatepeques for years and spread them around the area. They are cool fish, and like Sam said, they are now reclassified as nigrofaciatus. Besides Tangled Up In Cichlids offering altoflavus here a few weeks back, I had never seen them available in the hobby. I think I've kept all the other species in the genus sometime over the past 10 years. You don't see septemfaciatus or kanna very often.

 

[duanes]

Rare is kind of a funny term in the hobby, because what might be rare in California might be a glut situation in Chicago ( a bastion of cichlids in the hobby).
I know when I had spawning pairs of haitiiensus in the Chicago/Milwaukee area, I had a hard time giving them away, and in some other places hobbyists thought they were rare.
It may also be a representation of the actual range on the fish in nature. A altoflavus come from very limited range in north eastern Panama in the vicinity of Bocas del Toro, and this area now ravaged with Covid, being kind of cultish loose tourist area, may make it even more rare in the future unless someone(like Sam) is breeding it. When I lived near Chicago, to me there are very few rare cichlids.
I remember at an American Cichlid Assn convention both Sam and I mean mugging each other as we were both bidding and running up the price on some of the same rare Theraps bulleri, or was it irregularis? In the end we each ended up with some, if I remember right.
The only few cichlids I can conjure up in my mind as rare at the moment are Nandopsis ramsdeni from Cuba, and Iranocichla hormuzensus from Iran.
The last time I saw them for sale, they ran $300- $500 each.

 

[Hybridfish7]

I had some of Sam's coatepeques for years and spread them around the area. They are cool fish, and like Sam said, they are now reclassified as nigrofaciatus. Besides Tangled Up In Cichlids offering altoflavus here a few weeks back, I had never seen them available in the hobby. I think I've kept all the other species in the genus sometime over the past 10 years. You don't see septemfaciatus or kanna very often.

Interesting, at this point every new convict they find is just a new variant of a.nigrofasciata or a.siquia. except Kanna. I'm still mad at myself because the only reason I don't have a pair of altoflava right now is because I didn't pay Kevin's invoice on time. Other than that, I do have a very small unsexed pair of septemfasciata from max cichlids. Hopefully I get lucky as usual and they turn out to be an actual pair. If not they're still beautiful fish that I'd keep regardless.

 

[duanes]

One of the other things that might make certain fish rare, is that many countries are now looking at their fish and other animals as finite valuable resources, and starting to button up on their removal.
Costa Rica, and Panama are now requiring permits for the "legal" removal of species, and some countries like Madagascar are banning their removal all together.
This makes it all the more important for hobbyists to spawn them when possible, as opposed to simply putting it in a tank as a piece of living art until it dies, not passing on progeny.
And also, to" not" pollute their gene pools by making more mutt hybrids than there already are.

 

[jonclark96]

Duane has a good point. Many species that were available years ago are now no longer around in the hobby, and may never be available if hobbyists don't keep their populations going. It is tough, though, as many just see the different amatitlania species as "convicts", that honestly have a bad rap in my opinion. So many people want to keep tanks of big, bruiser fish that inevitably end up with a single large male that has killed all his tank mates. One could easily keep a population of amatitlania species in a 6 foot tank and experience all of the cool cichlid behaviors that we enjoy, but in a smaller, more manageable size. I kept my coatepeque colony in a 4 foot tank, and had a pair claim each side of the tank, but there was enough space for them not to kill each other. They spawned regularly and fry survived. I became over run with them.

I am a fan of convicts and the different variants that have been available over the years. I would guess that there may be more species than the three currently described, but no one has done the DNA research on them.

 

[duanes]

Thought I'd add some pics to this thread, of the 9 species of Amatitlania, others can fill in the species I've yet to keep.
I have kept 6 species of the genus so far and found each engaging, and the perfect Central Americans for tank 6 ft or under, although some get large enough (IMO) to warrant minimum 6 ft-ers
One of my first cichlids in the late 50s, was the aquarium strain convict, didn't have a camera back then, but.....
A. sajica, one of those that gets a bit too big for smaller tanks, the male below made its 125 gal look tiny.
.
As did the growth of this male A cutteri below

smaller, but no less interesting to me, A myrnae.

A sp Honduran Red Pt

And the best Central American cichlid for smallish tanks A nanoluteus, small in size, but striking in color

Panamius panamense was once also included on Amatitlania

 

[newworld]

Rare is kind of a funny term in the hobby, because what might be rare in California might be a glut situation in Chicago ( a bastion of cichlids in the hobby).
I know when I had spawning pairs of haitiiensus in the Chicago/Milwaukee area, I had a hard time giving them away, and in some other places hobbyists thought they were rare.
It may also be a representation of the actual range on the fish in nature. A altoflavus come from very limited range in north eastern Panama in the vicinity of Bocas del Toro, and this area now ravaged with Covid, being kind of cultish loose tourist area, may make it even more rare in the future unless someone(like Sam) is breeding it. When I lived near Chicago, to me there are very few rare cichlids.
I remember at an American Cichlid Assn convention both Sam and I mean mugging each other as we were both bidding and running up the price on some of the same rare Theraps bulleri, or was it irregularis? In the end we each ended up with some, if I remember right.
The only few cichlids I can conjure up in my mind as rare at the moment are Nandopsis ramsdeni from Cuba, and Iranocichla hormuzensus from Iran.
The last time I saw them for sale, they ran $300- $500 each.

Haha Duane, I believe they were bulleri which I did not spawn...

 

[newworld]

I had some of Sam's coatepeques for years and spread them around the area. They are cool fish, and like Sam said, they are now reclassified as nigrofaciatus. Besides Tangled Up In Cichlids offering altoflavus here a few weeks back, I had never seen them available in the hobby. I think I've kept all the other species in the genus sometime over the past 10 years. You don't see septemfaciatus or kanna very often.

Hi Jon, do you still have the strain? I’m tempted to go back, easy fish to collect