Cichlasoma ID and advice needed please

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Rainman Andy

Feeder Fish
Apr 14, 2011
2
0
0
Mainland UK
I recently bought 2 fish labelled as Aequidens Metae from my LFS.

Having posted some pictures on a different forum, I have discovered that they are not aequidens at all but a cichlasoma species.

I have thoroughly read the excellent thread by Mahlerfan on this forum about identifying this species but I am still unsure as to an exact ID. My male is just over 4 inches long and the female a little smaller. They are very colourful and the male in particular has shimmering blue on his lower body. The pelvic fins on both fish are sky blue with white fin trails. The fish are quite deep bodied and have rounded snouts.

Having read the article, I am thinking either C dimerus or C portalegrense but I could be completely wrong.

A poster on the other forum thinks that they may well be dimerus and would need a 3 month cooling period as they originate from Uruguay like gymnogeophagus. I'd be really grateful if you could take a look at some of these pictures and let me know what you think:

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Loves severums;5050182; said:
aequidens portalegrensis

The fish are not considered Aequidens anymore. They are Cichlasoma.

It's hard for me to say with any certainty because they all look so similar IMO. I think one way to narrow it down is the number of hard fin rays in the anal fin (although they're the same for C. dimerus and C. portalegrense, so that won't help differentiate between the two). You may want to count the fin rays or get some close-up shots of it anyway. Hopefully Mahlerfan will be able to help you out.

It does look a lot like the dimerus that I've seen online, but that's based purely on the chunky body shape and the color. I could be wrong.
 
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