Lets Get To the Bottom Of This, Got Pictures.....Help me ID it guys....

[Peanut_Power]

Heres the story. About a week or two ago I ordered some pikes from Rapps. Actually I ordered them from That Pet Place who ordered them from Rapps. Ended up having to pay more for them, but they had some other fish that i wanted, that amazingly Rapps didn't have at the moment. Anyway, there were three of them, and they were sold to me as Crenicichla marmoratas. When i first saw pictures of the pikes though I was a little skeptical cuz they didn't look like what i had pictured marm. juvs. to look like. But I trusted Rapps and his IDin of fish. So i got the pikes. They are doing great and I am most happy with them. Then someone, can't member if it was armac or Scat., doesn't matter who, told me that Rapps last shipment of Cren. marmoratas turned out to be strigata. This wasn't exactly the thing i wanted to hear to be honest with yaz. Since hearing it, I am now doubtin as to which species of Cren. i have. I am almost 90% sure they are not 'sp. venezuela'...as I don't think Rapps would sell them knowin they were 'sp. venezuela' as marmorata. Its annoys the heck outa me to try and tell 'sp. venezuela, strigata, marmorata, and lenticulata apart as juv. I haven't seen enough photos and juvs. in person to be 100% confident in my judgement although I can normally get them right....hehe. I will be happy with whatever they are as long as they aren't 'sp. venezuela'...lol. Be happier if they did turn out to be marms, but strigata is still a pretty rare pike, possibly even more so than marms, so I would be happy with them as well. Not to shabby of an adult pike as well...love the big humerol blotch..very kewl. Anyway, so i am a bit confused as to which pikes I have. Noone has really put much effort into answering this question for me, but maybe I just didn't word it right or sumptin. Anyway, here are a few pictures...please help if you can. Thankz!!
Jer

Here are a few pictures of the actual three pikes courteousy of That Pet Place before i had them shipped to me. As you can see, they have faint vertical bands above the horizontal line...but they come and go...and sometimes the black horizontal line is all that is there, which is more confusin for me. They don't seem to have any characteristics of 'sp. venezuela' from what i have seen of them, so I'm pretty sure we can rule that out.

Heres a couple shots of them after I have had them in my tank for a bit. They are showing more prominant colorings and becoming less shy, so hopefully in the next few days i will be able to get some more photos of them. They are finally learning that I'm not a threat and that i bring food...lol...so they are always there eager to see me when i come in the room...lol. This first shot if possibly the best one of the vertical bandin, although its kinda a dark picture and a little outa focus.

This next one shows the lateral horizontal line better...but you can still see the vertical bands slightly. Also note that there isn't the dark 'v' shape in the caudual fin like there is in 'sp. venezuela'.

Head Shot

Taken while acclimating one in a 5gal bucket...can see the bands pretty good in this one...

Heres some more random pictures...hope there are enough to help figure out what they are....tried my best to get some good pictures...i'll try better next time!

This one will probably do no good...but oh well...

 

[cuban jey]

i aint no help but it'd be a lil easier if you had pics of the three sp. as juvies..........................lol it's a f-ing brainbasher huh bro

 

[Peanut_Power]

The annoying thing is this...most Lugubris family pikes don't have good photos of the juv...just the adults...so its a pain in the toosh to find any juv. photos of any of the Lugubris pikes....which really sucks! I'll look around for a bit though and see what i can find

 

[cuban jey]

google power!!!

 

[Peanut_Power]

Ditto....tryin anyway.....that or Mostly Cichlids.com...the official pike cichlid website...low bandwidth though, which is annoying...i don't think there are many juv. pictures either...tons of great adult pics though!

 

[craig]

They are strigatas.I am looking at my chiclid bible right now.They show what juvies look like.

 

[guppy]

Where the pic shows the horizontal band and lateral line it looks like a strigata except that the caudal dot is to dark, where the pic shows the vertical banding and caudal dot well it looks like a wallacei. Something that always drives me nuts is that even in the wild blackstripes and slenders will freely interbreed and there are a lot of local varients. If it is a purebreed I would have to go with C. strigata, the blackstripe pike cichlid, eitherway great additions to you collection, Yay peanut power!

 

[bigguapote]

Saw this post and just wanted to add quick comment.
No worries about them being Cr. sp. Vz. Although I have many of them here, I do not play games like that and send another fish in place of that which was offered.
They came from Brazil as juv. marms. Tough call sometimes when distinguishing the two species at a small size.
The last comment about similar-looking pikes freely interbreeding in the wild is so off that had to point it out. Constructive comments are great, but ones like that will give readers who look for new or accurate info in a thread the completely wrong idea.

 

[guppy]

If I'm wrong I am sorry, the information came from a doctorate in icthyology at portland university who goes to sa every other year on collecting trips, I met him through a biology teacher in Medford and he told me this when I was complaining about how hard juvies were to tell apart. He said that several types such as the slender and the blackband hybridize in the wild like blue gill and redear sunnies do here. He also showed several photos of color variants that were the same species but did not look it. I can only go by the information I have been given and always stand ready to correct myself if it is in error.

 

[guppy]

I've been doing some surfing and while not finding anything about hybridization between blackband and slender p. cichlids I have found a couple of mentions of this occuring where various saxatillus groupings overlap such as C. guyana and C.alta and C.lepidota. Also crossbreeds of C. scotti and C. facetum were mentioned by the Washington Academy of Science and another site mentioned the unconfirmed occurance of C. lucious and C. anthuris mixes. These are all in the saxatillus grouping, the spangled p. cichlids which I mistakenly refered to as stellate p. cichlids earlier.