I'm not trying to doubt the importer or vendor as it is a nice specimen. There are several ways to achieve Red Texas, and two of them being Flowerhorn x Carpintis or Flowerhorn x Red Texas. Now not all the fry will be considered some Red Texas as not all the fry come out the same. Some will come out looking like each individual parent and some in between. I don't see any Carpintis in that fish, but that doesn't mean there isn't any in there. Even at a small size, Red Texas fry should like a Texas.
Now I am gonna take a guess and say the OP fish came from Petsmart because that where a lot of the new post on Red Texas are coming from. If thats so then the fish is coming from Segrest Farms who is unable to tell a Trimaculatus from a goldfish....
Like I said its a nice fish and definitely worth the purchase, its just not what it claims to be.
Got it. Point made. As I said, I am not a hybrid guy. I do rely heavily on people I trust. I may not know hybrids, but I do know my centrals. If asked I would say most definitely it had some form of Cyanaguttatus/Carpinte blood in the fish. I also know from experience that ID'ing ANY fish on this or any site is a crap shoot. I made a thread a while back here on MFK and asked if the fish could be named and had all kinds of responses mixing this and that. LOL Big fun. Seems like the same people do a pile on with opinions on "a dash of this and a dash of that" without really knowing. Again...if I was going to get a hybrid, it would probably be this particular cocktail.
Interesting you should mention Segrest Farms. I am flying down there for a week to photograph their stock list. Very excited about the opportunity. Great people and should be an awesome experience. There's something like 1400 species to photograph. I'm certain that among them will be some hybrid fish.