Festae?? Need some experts..

[Gatorxxx420]

Thats terrible.

Yea, cuz I could have used the 10 bucks I spent on something else. Either food for the fish or something non fish related. I will tell them the next time I go out there, if I even decide to go out there again that I wouldn't take a fish from them if they gave it to me after what happened. Like I said, they aren't selling these fish as what they are. They have them labeled as "Red Terrors". The only Mayan's I've seen that looked decent were wild ones. All the captive bred/kept ones look like crap.

 

[balton777]

Gator, study how these Festae look at a couple of inches so next time you see some at your LFS, you can better determine if they're the real deal or not. The Ocellus is an easy way to tell, it's clearly defined and at the upper portion of the tail even at this young age.

 

[NOLAGT]

Gator, study how these Festae look at a couple of inches so next time you see some at your LFS, you can better determine if they're the real deal or not. The Ocellus is an easy way to tell, it's clearly defined and at the upper portion of the tail even at this young age.

Perfect example to go by. I dont have any that big currently to snap a pic of.

 

[cichlid_fever]

Thanks man ive had them for two months now,cant wait to see them with 3"....

 

[whopjag]

Me personally this is what make it that more pleasing to be in this hobby, because when you finally do get the fish you really want it's much more satisfying to you!! and I will get some FASTAE real soon!!

 

[djb]

Some look like carpintis, a couple look like dovii.

i agree

 

[Boose1357]

I bought some fry from BGA about a month ago. Ill post pics when I get my camera back tonight. but yea man definitely some texas in those pics for sure. nice fish though...

 

[convict84]

there really really hard to find,i was waiting over a year for festae,its worth the wait/pain

 

[Jason_S]

Gator, study how these Festae look at a couple of inches so next time you see some at your LFS, you can better determine if they're the real deal or not. The Ocellus is an easy way to tell, it's clearly defined and at the upper portion of the tail even at this young age.

This is the very best way....study pics of juvenile festae and mayan...once you study the pics long enough it's fairly easy to tell the difference. This is the only way really to arm yourself for these types of situations. Once you do, you may find that you go into a store selling red devils that are really festae or something like that. I've been to lfs several times and have seen juvie festae in the tanks with no label, or maybe a label that says "assorted south americans". One LFS I went to recently had a juvie festae come in with other fish and the guy working there asked me what it was...and I told him it was a juvie festae.

What you really have to understand is that a lot of times, the lfs owners and employees don't know the difference. They usually aren't as well read and studied on cichlids as members here are so they're pretty much just going by what their distributor tells them. That same lfs I mentioned above also one time had a ~4" fish they were selling as a zonatus because that's what the distributor told them it was. However I told them it was clearly a fenestratus.

Bottom line is that the odds of you going to any lfs where the employees can identify juvenile cichlids is extremely low. They're simply going by what they were told by the distributors. And in that right the distributors often are going by what they were told when they purchased the fish from farms or whever they got them from.

 

[KLee79]

good news...tfd was kind enough to give me my money back. i know its not all their fault but at the same time, maybe they should have known?