Oddball Cichlid I.D. Please….

[Yellowcat]

Since my hobby is mostly catfish I'm not that familiar with cichlids although I've kept a few. I found this one at my LFS around 9 months ago in a tank with mostly African cichlids that was labeled incorrectly, I just liked how it looked, unusual to me and thought it would be an active addition to one of my catfish tanks with very reclusive species that I never see. It turned out to be just as reclusive as the catfish and I rarely gat a glimpse of it as it constantly hides in the driftwood with the cats and is extremely hard to get a decent photo of it, hence the poor photo quality. The fish is around 3 inches long, hasn't grown much if at all and feeds on flakes and probably anything else given to it's tank mates. Here's some photo's…



Toothy, eh?
An I.D. and possible origin would be greatly appreciated, Thanks!

 

[tlindsey]

African cichlid Calvus specie.

 

[tlindsey]

Origin Lake Tanganyikan, the 1 in the pic looks old or deformed.

 

[Yellowcat]

Hey I appreciate the quick I.D. and info, after your clue I looked at a cichlid website and it seems I have an Orange Calvus as best I can tell. Not sure if it's shape is normal or not, the photo may distorted due to being cropped from a very large photo and the fish being in a bow front curved glass tank, of course this shy fish refuses to pose for the perfect side profile photo.. Thanks!

 

[duanes]

Agreed is one of the Altolamrologus species, as stated above, probably calvus.
Doesn't really look deformed to me, just a bit beat up. The catfish probably see it as prey, and are harassing it.
They like to wedge themselves into openings and crevices in driftwood when threatened, where protrude out their scales which become like hooks to prevent being removed from the spot, by predators. They are the cichlid equivalent of leaf fish.
There are dwarf varieties that breed in empty snail shells.

 

[joe jaskot]

not the greatest pictures but it looks like an altolamprologus compressiceps

 

[krichardson]

It looks bloated to me.

 

[Yellowcat]

Wow interesting, as I recall the LFS had it labeled as a. compressiceps but no one there was sure if that's what it was. It does also closely resemble some photo's I just found of "red fin" a. compressiceps, hmmm… Yeah the photos are terrible however the fish and it's fins are intact so it's not really beat up or anything. It's in with 5-4" dwarf giraffe catfish, 2 -4" batrochoglanis "bee" catfish and a fast growing 9" vulture catfish but they all seem to ignore the cichlid and everyone gets along… Thanks..

 

[krichardson]

Wow interesting, as I recall the LFS had it labeled as a. compressiceps but no one there was sure if that's what it was. It does also closely resemble some photo's I just found of "red fin" a. compressiceps, hmmm… Yeah the photos are terrible however the fish and it's fins are intact so it's not really beat up or anything. It's in with 5-4" dwarf giraffe catfish, 2 -4" batrochoglanis "bee" catfish and a fast growing 9" vulture catfish but they all seem to ignore the cichlid and everyone gets along… Thanks..

They probably meant Altolamprologus compressiceps.They were a favorite of mine when I was into Africans as I love the mean look to their faces but they are actually rather shy..I'm not sure what is going on with the belly but it does not look normal. They are usually a rather flat fish,hence the name compressiceps.

 

[Yellowcat]

Actually it's again a photo problem in the top picture as I used a feature in i-photo to blur out water spots on the glass which made the image of the fish appear as if it's bloated but it's actually thin and flat as it should be. The fish is extremely shy and does stay hidden in it's own small niche in the driftwood pile and only briefly darts out to feed when I put in flakes..