Need Help to ID a Fish

[emptyhead]

Walmart does indeed sell cichlids. I am the furthest thing from an expert on fish and I decided I wanted a small tank with a couple nice looking fish. Since I'm 100% noob and admit I know as much about fish as how to build a space station, I went into walmart and bought a 10 gal tank, and some "cute" tiny fish. Sounds innocent enough, except that the "cute" tiny fish that I bought turned out to be Venustus and Jack Dempsey, they were all in the same tank so I didn't think anything of it, that is until I woke up one morning to find my Jack swimming happily around the dead bodies of the other fish.
Lesson learned on my part.

This is kind of funny, except it happens all the time. I remember my first tank too when I first got my own place. A 10g tank with 2 kenyi, some tetras, and some bumblebee gobies. Well - of course we know that eventually I had a 10g tank with one male kenyi by himself. The clerk was adamant that these fish would all get along fine.

It is ironic that this chains call themselves "pet" stores and have no idea what they are selling in their fish aisles and give little credible fish advice to their customers. They should just sell supplies, and not pets. Probably only a matter of time till there are some regulations put in place that prohibit selling any live animals without certain merits.

 

[harkolida]

I had in total in my 10 - 2 Jacks, 2 Venustus, 2 black tetra and a pleco, all with 100% guarantee they would all get along fine and wouldn't grow any bigger than what they were when I bought them.
Now that I think about it, it is a big funny cause it's so ridiculous. Agreed, they should stop selling fish or at least hire employees that know what they're talking about.
After research I now have a 60 gal with my one original Jack and a few others

 

[Razor7Music]

Petsmart + hard to identify mbuna = hybrid.

You are probably right in this case. Once I put the fish in my tank I knew immediately that it is a very, very dark p elongatus. I have another (normal) one which made it easy to peg.

I did look online and p elongatus can have different colors, but this one is so dark, and I've never seen an elongatus at PS before, I'm thinking it is a hybrid.

Still, it is a very cool looking fish and I have a semi-large e blue hap that is a cannibal--so I have to make sure any new additions to the tank are larger than "bite size" and he/she is.

I'll try to post a pic later, but I had to do the typical distractions when intro a new fish and they went nigh night for now.

Thanks all--

PS. On the Pet Smart thing: My son caught a scorpion on a scout trip and brought it home. I took him to PS to get a home for him, and of course the staff knew nothing about scorpions--and they openly admitted that. So, we picked a bug cage and all of a sudden, the staff were experts on scorpions. No, you need a bigger one. Why? Nevermind...

Just know what you want ahead of time and retail pet stores are fine.

 

[Otherone]

Hello--

I stopped by a PetSmart at lunch today and saw a 3.5" fish that I wasn't sure what it was. I don't ask the employees anymore.

Anyway, I've been searching online to see what it is and I can't find it. It looks like a kenyi, but it has a lot more black on it's body and a black face. The dorsal is also black with white horizontal stripes. Between the broad vertical stripes on the body is blue.

The overall shape of the fish is like a kenyi. I could pick it out of a lineup if anyone has a good link I can use to search from.

Your describing a hundred or species of cichlids in lake Malwai. I'm not sure about the rest of the world but the 2 Petsmarts around here sell mostly hybrids, the peacocks are juiced, and the fish are generally showing very unhealthy colors. 2 weeks ago I went to Petsmart for frozen krill - Lady says to her son " Look at the cute little suckerfish" - Petsmart employee - "It's a Trinadad Pleco they only get 4" max and can live in a 10gal tank." - nuff said.

 

[Razor7Music]

Hey folks. Finally got a decent pic of the new guy. See my album under my profile titled, black elongatus.