Aequidens metae "Rio Atabapo"

[neutrino]

Wild A. metae "Rio Atabapo", male about 6" --from TUIC.

There's also an Aquidens sp. atabapo, a different fish, which I believe has small spots on the head instead of the vermiculation of metae. Color on metae can vary according to catch location (per Alf Stalsberg's Aquidens page) and, of course, with mood. These can get pretty dark at times, more brownish than yellow. This means photo IDs of metae can be ambiguous if they're not clearly displaying classic metae color or markings.

In my experience not all metae have (or display) a black mark near the eye. Even within the same group, some may have a mark and others not, the mark may vary in size, or they may display it or not according to mood.

Female and another male visible in the background of the top photo.

Photo taken with an iphone (best I have for fish photos). No color editing to the photo, only cropped and sharpened a little bit.

 

[neutrino]

Uh boy... spelled metae wrong in the title.

 

[james99]

Uh boy... spelled metae wrong in the title.

Fixed it for you.

Pretty neat looking little fish. How's their temperament? I moved all of my african cichlids out months ago, but have been thinking of going the SA/CA route for a centerpiece in the new setup.

 

[neutrino]

Fixed it for you.

Pretty neat looking little fish. How's their temperament? I moved all of my african cichlids out months ago, but have been thinking of going the SA/CA route for a centerpiece in the new setup.

Thanks

Temperament is generally pretty mild, which matches their usual description and what I've also seen when others keep them, so it seems fairly consistent. Bossiest one in this group is one of the females, bordering on belligerent when preparing to spawn, but the worst she does, really, is fussing around and chasing. Most of it's toward the other metae pair and a few geos in the tank. Essentially chasing only, no fin damage, and the geos fuss back, so it's typical cichlid stuff but on a mild scale. Two wild Peru scalare in the tank also, which the metae don't pay much attention to. Ultimately I'd like to have an adult Heros sp. in the tank to keep order, but those I'm interested in seem hard to come by right now.

The metae group is two pair, at least one of them has spawned multiple times, but there's an L128 pleco in the tank I think is getting the eggs-- which is okay, I've done a lot of breeding in the past, but I started a woodworking hobby a few years ago, downsized the fish and don't really need hundreds of metae fry right now.

 

[neutrino]

Fixed it for you.

...and now I just realized I also spelled Aequidens wrong (which I do sometimes). Been too long a day, I guess.