So, whatever your opinion is on what species it actually is, Wet Spot is selling the same ornatum that's being sold by other sources right now here in the US as ornatum.
Is this a true ornatum?!
- Thread starter 305phins
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Idk im trying to find out what river these were collected in and then i guess i will decided my opinion.. Bc in Sk made some very good points though. I just wanna do a little more research even though from what ive seen in this thread and Cichlidea, there's really now way to tell for sure what species it is. "Ornatums" being collected in a river where only "Gephyrum" exist, in my opinion would be better termed Gephyrum. But like Bk in Sk said "As Willem Heijns points out, the vaidity of gephyrum may be questionable".. Soo I think ill make up my own name for the thread maybe "Gephyrum Aka Ornatum Grow out and Breeding Project" or "Ornatum Aka Gephyrum Grow out and Breeding Project" LOL we should do a poll on what the best name would be 
The Rio Atrato ... which is north of both the ornatum and gephyrum range ... with a very large mountain range seperating the river basins without any connecting rivers (that I can find).
For the your log, I'd probably call them cf. ornatum since that is what they are (mostly) being called in the hobby.
There is a variety of opinions on this thread. No consensus. The fish is sold by Jeff Rapps as exCichlasoma cf. ornatum, and this fish is typically known and called so in the hobby.
I think it's a little silly to jump on the cf. gephyrum bandwaggon for the following reasons:
1) The fish doesn't even have a genus name yetHasn't been determined yet. Still in limbo; doesn't have a valid name so we call it an ex"Cichlasoma" just because we need some kind of name to refer to it as.
2) As soon as you use cf. or aff. in a name your saying: it's similar to, might be, but were not sure. It might be an as of yet undescribed species. No doubt it is similar to either species. Could be either---really hasn't been determined yet, for sure. And if it is an undescribed species, who's to say it's closer to one or the other......even DNA tests may never accurately reveal that.
3) As Willem Heijns points out, the vaidity of gephyrum may be questionable. Originally described as a subspecies, Eigenmenn who described the fish, even questioned whether the fishes he had might be an exC. atromaculatum X exC. ornatum cross. At least he had some doubts. Kullander later resurected it to full species status......but he did the same for the exC. urophthalmus subspecies, and none of these are generaally recognised today. Is gephyrum even a valid species? Who knows .... I certainly don't know
Very true about the consensus. I think Rapps was the only one I've seen use the .cf ornatum. Everyone has been using ornatum. I didn't really mean to have my post come across as I knew 100% what they were, more to remind people that there is a lot of doubt about what they are, with ornatum being the least likely.
1) I use exHeros instead of exCichlasoma, mostly because of Willem Heijins who knows far more about the science side of the hobby than I do.
2) True. Oliver used the cf because he recongized that they didn't match ornatum, and that they were closer to the description of gephyrum in markings than the ornatum, hence the recent change that others fell in with.
3) Hey, I remember those subspecies ... there were 9 of them weren't there?(I only remember zebra off the top of my head). I doubt they are a cross, since atro's are found in the area where gephyrm are nor are ornatum (as we currently know both). Rather or not gephyrum is a valid species or not, I guess we have to wait for that pesky DNA stuff. But unless there is a source of origin DNA on the gephyrum, we may never know (much like Paratheraps guttulatus, or what ever genus it's been shuffled into lately). Though I don't always agree with Kullander (the turqouise sev comes to mind), he obviously knows far more than I can even pretend to and his seperations were generally considered 'right' by the hobby until DNA started popping up.
Ack, the Rio Atrato were the atro's ... the cf. ornatum were the Rio San Juan. I do have collection data for the San Juan. pH 6.7, no detectable hardness (either gH or kH), temp 24.2C.
So to amend my earlier post. These cf. ornatum are found north of the ornatum known range, right in the area where the gephyrum range is (though that doesn't automatically mean that's what they are mind).
So to amend my earlier post. These cf. ornatum are found north of the ornatum known range, right in the area where the gephyrum range is (though that doesn't automatically mean that's what they are mind).
Lol thanks darth pike you've been really helpfull throught this thread dude. Thats only 76 degrees and ph 6.7 thats kinda soft a ? From what i looked up (which i could find much and dont know how accurate it is) something like ph 7.8 and temp around 80.
