How come the species is so rare in the hobby? Is it just a recently discovered sp.? Does it require any special care? The main things I notice about it are one, it appears to be a jake type, and two, it has a different shade of the usual iridescent blue peacocks come in. What's up with that?
I only know that most breeders and wholesales here sell it as a hybrid. Some also say it is a selectiv breed. Since it looks pretty much like an Aulonocara I assume it is a either a hybrid from two Aulonocara species or at least a mix of different catch locations.
I thought it was line bred, but I see some also say it is a hybrid. Most guess stuartgranti. I have kept them and find them to be like stuartgranti as well. No special care and ideal for this fish is light solid turquoise color with as little pink as possible. Pretty fish, good when you are looking for peacocks that look nothing alike for an all male tank.
Here is one thing I found.
A linebred Variant of the Aulonocara Chilumba. Originally produced from a mutated Chilumba (recessive gene) and further linebred in Germany to keep the beautiful Turquoise coloration resulting in a new fish. fairly peaceful in terms of Peacocks much like the Chilumba, may not do well with more boisterous peacocks and haps resulting in poor coloration, however exceptions often occur.
I figured if it was a hybrid then chilumba would be in there. Interesting with the turquoise gene. If that's a gene in stuartgranti imagine a flametail with the turquoise...
But that aside I assumed it was a jake type because the bigger ones I saw had the forked tails and pointed fins. Maybe it's somewhere in there but I'll stick to the idea that it's just a bunch of stuartgranti locales mixed together.
Most peacocks you find in LFSs are hybrids (or line bred) and have been for decades.
The only way to get pure species is to go to a collector (or dealer) that separates, and/or has kept species separated forever.
There are a couple legitimate people I know of that are persnickety enough to do this.
And....it is often difficult because females are almost all undefinable.
Daves Schumacher of Daves Rare fish (hope I spelled the name right
And one of the main guys at Wet Spot who collects peacocks in the rift lakes (his name escapes me at the moment)
I attended one of his talks, and one of the problems, even in the lakes is that some collectors have moved species from their original areas and put them in more convenient collecting spots, which has allowed interbreeding in nature.
