Herichthys ID

[Brazzen1]

Hi all, this is my big guy. Please excuse the the water, I’m trying tannins, he’s been digging and one bulb went out. I’m setting him up a new 125. I’ve always thought he was a Herichthys Carpentis but after looking in my “Cichlids of Central America” he looked more like a cf. pantostictus. So hopefully you guys can help me. He’s between 10-13”, hard to get a picture. Thanks.

 

[duanes]

Above is what was once sold as H pantostictus.
but has recently revised into H tepehua and pame
geographic catch location its very harfd to tell
Unless you have an actual location point (river, lagoon, lake, etc



To me yours looks like one of the many H carpintus location variants, and there are many that look quite different, river to river, lagoon to lagoon
Below left one from Tamasopo river, below right a LFS strain with no known location specified

Below H caprpintus ¨lago Chairel

As you can see, without a catch location given, its a krapp shoot, as far as legitimate ID goes.
And with the random species hybrization these days, along with aquarists that mix location points, and allow subspecies, and locationn points to inter breed, if bought in a LFS, a generic Herichthys aquarium strain, is all one can realistically hope for.
Many aquarists see no difference between H cyannogutatus and carpintus so have been combined ad nauseum, without regard species to legitimacy.
Same has been done to Paratilapia so called Starry night cichlids, when there are at least 5 sepaeate species
Do the 2 below look to the same, yet some aquarists call them both Starry night cichlids?

 

[Brazzen1]

Thanks duanes, I was just going to send it to you personally LOL!! The guy I got him from said Escondido, but after all these years I just thought I’d post him on here and see what you guys think. I’m kind of dreading moving him again, it was definitely a fight. What really made me wonder was his size, I thought carpintus usually only get around 8-10”, he is definitely larger than that. As for the two paratilapia you posted, they look very different to me.

 

[duanes]

If escondido was listed by a trusted breeder or importer, if it were me, I´d cautiously go with that.
Escondido is a legitimate locatiion point, and looks like many I have seen, so could be...
but.....If picked up at a LFS as a trade in, well.....aquarium strain Herichthys is the best one can hope for...
But pantostictus is quite different and part of the labridens clade

Left spawning colors, ............................................right non-spawning dress
My male carpintus laguna chairel easily hit over 10¨

 

[duanes]

speaking of location variants.

Above is an Andinoacara coeruleopunctatus caught in the Rio Pacora, Central Panama
Below is the same species caught in the Rio Mamoni, less that 20 miles in eastern Panama

Or Darienheros calobrensis from the wide open , and large large Mamoni river

compared with the same species Darienheros, from the smaller foliage covered Plataneras, stream, only a few miles east

 

[dogofwar]

My guess is H. cyanoguttatus (Texas Cichlid)

 

[duanes]

Here is a pair of H pantostictus in spawning dress

One of pantostictus distinguishing traits is red in the unpaired fins

 

[Brazzen1]

Thanks guys, when he had tank mates he was pretty chill, he had a pictus (would fight occasionally), goby (ignored), and an angelfish (only attacked when it was on it’s last leg). So for the 125 or 210 (haven’t decided yet), what do you guys think for tank mates?

 

[duanes]

Its interesting how Central American cichlids, have a sort of innate dentente with, and ignore non-cichlid like tank mates, but attack other cichlids.


and to me angel fish are sometimes so un-cichlid-like in their outward appearance (especially compared to most Central American cichlids) as to not elicit a normal aggressive response reserved for most others similar shaped fish of their ilk.
I have been able to house a number of CA cichlids separately in tanks in a copacetic truce with Awaous gobies, Rhamdia (Pimelodia) catfish, tetras and other non-cichlids that barely warrant a second glance, that with other cichlids raise immediate territorial hackles.

But I seldom find more than a 2 cichlid species together in the same large large river, or body of water, and maybe that bodes a warning as to how we should keep them in our tiny tanks.
yet tolerance for non-cichlids found in the same waters may have an evolutionary componant and basis that transcends our understanding.

 

[Brazzen1]

I gotta stop getting on here, duanes you’re gonna make me get a dovii and put it in with neons.. But I did notice what you’re saying, when I was a kid we had a buttikoferi that was docile when it was growing up with other cichlids, red snakehead, red bellied pacific and my redtail catfish. Got rid of everything except the buttikoferi and a four-lined pictus. I got some feeders and the darn thing was chewing up food for them, up until it got to about 13-15” then just started killing them off. I got the catfish out in time, although it gave as much as it got, just like the one that was with my current Texas.