My Gorgeous FESTAE Youngesters

[Cyberman]

I was fortunate enough to meet Ross Evans of One Click Fish... He's the Jeff Rapps of the UK cichlid world and today I was there to look at his marvelous Treasure trove of wild caught cichlids and other top quality fishes. Like a warehouse full of tanks all hiding untold secrets - mostly cichlids including Ornatum... I ended up buying 5 wild caught Festae that I'm led to believe get very red. They're between 1.5 and 2.5" long, at the moment.

Heres a few pics of them sharing at the moment with Istlanum and Jewels - quite a firey bunch.

 

[Runitis]

very neat i have never seen babies with color on the body! Very interesting especially the pink one!

 

[Freshwaterpredators]

Congrats!!! Definitely keep up with the updates. It's too bad that everyone can't trade and ship fish easily over seas. As I an definitely interested in some peoples stock over in the UK.

 

[Cyberman]

I shot some video While I was there so will upload that at some point. Ross is planning on breeding ornatum, eventually, but at the moment hes very busy expanding his tank space. He really is about cichlids this guy and more so Central and South American Species.

As for my Festae. They'll be soon moved to my new 75 gallon grow on tank then eventually the 8ft 300gallon when it gets built. Can't wait to see how these guys grow. I'm not to sure about the sexes... but to me they all look female because of the coloration and lack of turquoise spangling but only 2 of the smaller ones actually has the darker dorsal blotch.

Do you guys think its a mistake mixing them with istlanum?

 

[mrmann]

As they get a little larger I would separate them from the istlanum....but for now it works. Not sure what you mean exactly by "mistake".

 

[surfpalmsncycads]

istlanum tend to be way more agressive at smaller size. i would personally seperate as soon as possible. for sure it will take alot of stress off the festae.

 

[Cyberman]

Yeah I think I'll seperate these guys so not over stress them. Then hopefully when I get the monster tank built I'll have two gorgeous pairs... Festae and Istlanum.

 

[davew]

i think you might mean ross evans of oddball express

 

[Cyberman]

Ahhh yeah... well spotted... I had a long drive home yesterday lol

 

[davew]

i've had a few fish off ross before always top quality, i don't think i would trust myself to have a drive down there as i would probably come back with loads of fish that i have nowhere to put

i have some of the same batch of istlanum fry as you from "fish alive" ,there is one which is almost certainly a male and chases the rest relentlessly seems very aggressive for a small fish