Calling All you Severum Fans.................

[peathenster]

hmmm... the caudal peduncle looks interesting on this gold - almost like red-spotted sevs...

I haven't posted here yet. Here it is. I have a female but no pics of her in my photobucket account. I'll have to find it. The male is currently 6-7 inches. The pic shows a 5-inch. They have spawned at least five times but I'm not interested in raising the fry.

 

[Cichla dude]

Yes that is true!

hmmm... the caudal peduncle looks interesting on this gold - almost like red-spotted sevs...

 

[jgentry]

A lot of male golds have that once they mature. They generally don't have quite that much red on there face though. The red spotted severums were line breed from golds, so they are genetically pretty much the same fish.

 

[peathenster]

I'm not sure what your statement that a lot of male golds have that was based on? Is there a documented percentage, and is it male-specific? I don't think this particular gold is very old either.

Check posts #30, #31 etc on this thread - that's what normal adult golds look like. Note that there's not as much red on those golds.

Keep in mind that 1) golds are color morphs or green, and reds are breed from golds; 2) you almost never see the caudal peduncle feature on greens, but on some golds, and on almost all the reds (I've got two - even the 3 incher has it).

I found it interesting because there seems to be an apparent phenotypic association between the caudal peduncle feature and the degree of "redness" - not just for green vs. gold vs. red, but also among golds with different amounts of redness. Maybe these two genes are linked???

A lot of male golds have that once they mature. They generally don't have quite that much red on there face though. The red spotted severums were line breed from golds, so they are genetically pretty much the same fish.

 

[Cichla dude]

Yes I agree.

I'm not sure what your statement that a lot of male golds have that was based on? Is there a documented percentage, and is it male-specific? I don't think this particular is gold is very old either.

Check posts #30, #31 etc on this thread - that's what normal adult golds look like. Note that there's very little red on those golds.

Keep in mind that 1) golds are color morphs or green, and reds are breed from golds; 2) you almost never see the caudal peduncle feature on greens, but on some golds, and on almost all the reds (I've got two - even the 3 incher has it).

I found it interesting because there seems to be an apparent phenotypic association between the caudal peduncle feature and the degree of "redness" - not just for green vs. gold vs. red, but also among golds with different amounts of redness. Maybe these two genes are linked???

 

[jgentry]

I'm certainly not saying that all golds look like that. They are very common in stores around here and I have seen quite a few with that feature and they are generally all male. I have a neighbor with a male that looks almost identical except it doesn't have as much red on it's face. You are going to see some golds with features similiar to red spotted because they are really the same thing. They selected the golds with the most red and bred them. Then they bred the offspring with the most red and so on and so on. It is gold severum trait.

 

[Cichla dude]

I'm certainly not saying that all golds look like that. They are very common in stores around here and I have seen quite a few with that feature and they are generally all male. I have a neighbor with a male that looks almost identical except it doesn't have as much red on it's face. You are going to see some golds with features similiar to red spotted because they are really the same thing. They selected the golds with the most red and bred them. Then they bred the offspring with the most red and so on and so on. It is gold severum trait.

Yeah you got a point there.

 

[peathenster]

I'm certainly not saying that all golds look like that. They are very common in stores around here and I have seen quite a few with that feature and they are generally all male. I have a neighbor with a male that looks almost identical except it doesn't have as much red on it's face. You are going to see some golds with features similiar to red spotted because they are really the same thing. They selected the golds with the most red and bred them. Then they bred the offspring with the most red and so on and so on. It is gold severum trait.

Let's not argue about things that we don't know, and have no way of finding out. While just about everybody writes online that reds are line-bred golds, I don't know if there's any solid evidence of that - with so many outstanding breeders around and the reds being so expensive, you'd think someone (not in Singapore) would have bred those. Actually the one person I trust most told me otherwise - that reds are actually hybrids of different heros species and hence sterile. But again, he has not done it himself.

Come to think of it, the "keep breeding gold sevs with a little red and you end up with sevs that are almost completely red" situation is somewhat interesting too. Can you think of another example for SA/CA cichlids?

Anyway, here are a few of my pics .... recently moved 6 sevs from my 120g grow-out to a 220g....still have a bunch of young adult golds and rotkeils in the 120g and not sure what to do with them...

Group picture - two reds, one gold, one green, and a pair of rotkeils

The two reds like to hang out together, but by normal sev sexing standards they both look like males to me:

The larger one:

The smaller one

 

[Eric A]

Nice setup.

 

[peathenster]

Nice setup.

thanks...as long as you don't look down at the sand substrate