My week began on a bit of a sad note, as my male red devil Hellboy began trying to violate my female (?) v. synspilum apparently without consent which resulted in near hulk-like rampages by the RD and much cowering by the vieja. It's not like he is a bad looking RD (i believe that he is currently my avatar) its just the vieja must've been feeling the distinctly hostile atmosphere around at the moment regarding hybridization and wanted no part in these nasty inter-breed experiments. As a lot of you know RDs do not take kindly to getting snubbed and he took it pretty hard, at about noon yesterday i realized that it was either keep the synspilum for another day or two and risk it's near certain destruction or do something about it..
So greenterrorizer and i bucketed the hapless vieja and made an 11th hour dash to the lfs before closing time.. When we arrived, i inquired as to whether or not they had any female RDs around the same size (but slightly larger than hellboy) and got pointed in the direction of a real specimen, about 7.5 inches long and 4-5 high and an awesome orange/white/pearlescent purple colour
. Thinking that this beautiful fish would be worth a lot more than my simple vieja and only having $20 to add to the deal i inquired as to how much she was worth (as i live in australia a similar fish would go for $120-150!) and taking another look at my poor vieja the extremely nice dude that runs the store informed me that the trade plus the cash would be enough to cover it 
I rushed home before he could change his mind, however, upon returning and looking at my hellboy again realized that, as we aquariasts often are prone to doing i overestimated hellboys size a tiny bit and now have a female that dwarfs my male by about 2-3inches all around..
Since she has been introduced to the tank he has been having the time of his life showing off for her 24/7 and when she ignores him even his most beserk rage attack just bounces off her and she just cruises off...
Is this the way to go when breeding devils? Bigger female +smaller male? Also she looks possibly a touch more midas than he does, do the two species mate easily? Anyways just thought i'd share the great news with my fellow MFKers and don't worry i will not be able to hold off posting photos much longer....... Until then..
So greenterrorizer and i bucketed the hapless vieja and made an 11th hour dash to the lfs before closing time.. When we arrived, i inquired as to whether or not they had any female RDs around the same size (but slightly larger than hellboy) and got pointed in the direction of a real specimen, about 7.5 inches long and 4-5 high and an awesome orange/white/pearlescent purple colour
. Thinking that this beautiful fish would be worth a lot more than my simple vieja and only having $20 to add to the deal i inquired as to how much she was worth (as i live in australia a similar fish would go for $120-150!) and taking another look at my poor vieja the extremely nice dude that runs the store informed me that the trade plus the cash would be enough to cover it I rushed home before he could change his mind, however, upon returning and looking at my hellboy again realized that, as we aquariasts often are prone to doing i overestimated hellboys size a tiny bit and now have a female that dwarfs my male by about 2-3inches all around..
Since she has been introduced to the tank he has been having the time of his life showing off for her 24/7 and when she ignores him even his most beserk rage attack just bounces off her and she just cruises off...
Is this the way to go when breeding devils? Bigger female +smaller male? Also she looks possibly a touch more midas than he does, do the two species mate easily? Anyways just thought i'd share the great news with my fellow MFKers and don't worry i will not be able to hold off posting photos much longer....... Until then..
