is it?

[filiportela]

hi everyone, i just bougth a 24 cm labiattum, but he looks exactly like my citrinellus but with no lump, he lloks like my citrinellus 5 year old female only yonguer and larger, kinda like a red devil but very ligth orange almoust pink.... is this a labiattum? if it is wen can i expect the lipps to pop out?

 

[desertdweller]

do you have pics?

 

[Vitaliy]

I second the pics comment, without pictures its impossible to tell apart Amphilophus (Cichlasoma) labiatum (Red Devil) and a Amphilophus Citrinellus (Midas), it's even hard to do with pictures!

 

[filiportela]

i don't have the cable tu put the pics in the pc, its at work and i'm on holyday... but it deffenetly is not a citrinellus, my female has a bigger lump than him...

wen do the lipps start to get big or how? does anyone know?

 

[filiportela]

i joined him with my citrinellus theyr about the same size, and they are strangly getting along.... guess probably the labiatum is a female... he shure likes the labiattum... so figthing what so ever, and it's been like this for 6 hours....

very large for a female doe.. well i never had a labiatum

 

[SinisterKisses]

Unless you bought this fish from somewhere like Tangled up in Cichlids, or some other very reputable breeder, as a pure fish, its almost guaranteed to actually be a mix of the two. It will just end up showing more traits from one than the other.

 

[filiportela]

nop i bougth it from this guy in an internet fish forum.. but the guy says he's pure for shure... now i'm checking to see if it's a male or female... since a day has passed and still no figthing...


the citrinelus female really needed a rest lol... he's a little rougfh on her some times...

 

[Jason_S]

the lips won't pop out. they develop the larger lips in the wild due to their specialized eating habit of putting their lips around holes and crevices and sucking out small creatures. the larger lips help them to get enough suction to suck the little critters out. in captivity the lips decrease in size because they no longer require them for feeding. now if you were to put the food inside say texas holey rock and train them to eat from it then the lips might just get larger. however, training an older fish to do this wouldn't be the easiest thing in the world. the best way to do this would be with wild caught labiatum that still have the large lips. they would already be used to that type of feeding so would be much easier to train to eat that way.