Look at this dwarf cichlid
- Thread starter MatteoTheEnder22
- Start date
Looks more like A. macmasteri 'redneck' or 'redshoulder' to me. Usually sold as A. viejita, which is very rare in the hobby and usually only seen in Europe.
Where did you get that information? A. viejita 'gold' is a very common apisto. A. macmasteri 'redneck looks similar to A. viejita, and are sometimes sold under the wrong species but that isn't always so. A. macmasteri has subtle differences. One of the major ones is head shape. In A. viejita the head is attached to the body in a smooth fashion. One curved line. In A. macmasteri the head protrudes from the body. Does that make sense?
Here: https://mtfb.com/SouthernApistos/pricelist.html
From the Apistogramma forum, where experts like Mike Wise and other Apisto experts ID apistos. Someone found and brought back A. viejita for the first time just a few years ago. Though apistos have been sold under the name for a long time, it's much like the Geophagus surinamensis issue. IE, fish have been sold under that name for decades, but it's never actually been G. surinamensis. Or how jewel cichlids have been sold as Hemichromis bimaculatus when they have really been Hemichromis guttatus.
It's only been in the last two years or so that you've seen true A. viejita, and I've not seen any line bred strains come from them yet. The viejita gold is a well known color form of A. macmasteri.
It's only been in the last two years or so that you've seen true A. viejita, and I've not seen any line bred strains come from them yet. The viejita gold is a well known color form of A. macmasteri.
It's a good resource, but I feel out of my depth there. Between Mike Wise and a bunch of the European experts, the knowledge is amazing but always makes me feel like a novice despite 30+years of fishkeeping. But then I never focused on Apistos so perhaps that's not a surprise. They do talk other dwarf cichlids there though as well.
Fish in the OP, as stated above, is 100% not viejita in the scientific sense. Poor picture of the true viejita. Note the continuous "zig-zag" lateral band, the squareish to crescent shaped caudal spot, extremely long unpaired fins, and if you look closely, the metallic blue dorsal with red tips.
No, not wild caught. They are an F1 pair, from wilds that hit the states in 2019
