Paratheraps id?

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PhelansFish

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Dec 4, 2015
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Hello i got this guy a few months ago and boy is he growing! I brought him as a texas lol but have been told by someone knowledgable that it is a coatzacoalacos. What do you guys think? He is about 4 inches if that helps.

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He's looks a lot like either a Coaz, or a Zonatus. If he's growing fast, sounds like a Zonatus to me. I say "he", I have no idea what gender.
 
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Could be one of three fish,veija zonatus, veija guttulatus and as suggested veija sp coatzacoalcos.
There is much confusion over these three and i believe that even experts are undecided/unsure of their true identities.
Some people believe all three could be the same fish,just regional variants of each other. Some also believe they may be natural hybrids.
I have kept these veija myself and have always never really known with any certainty which one I had.
I had a conversation with Lee Nuttal over the id of mine at that time and he told me that even the most reputable of suppliers can not be certain which species they are selling or even if they are infact all the same species.
It seems only Dna analysis will answer for certain.
One thing I do know is they can be extremely aggressive when adult.
They are also absolutely beautiful too.
Here is one I had,it looks different to yours.
I was sold this fish as veija guttulatus, but who knows?

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I would say coaz or zonatus, to me looks a bit more like coaz, but the two sp are very closely related or the same sp just different catch locations. As you bought the fish as a texas and don't know it's history I am not sure you could call it either 100% due to the amount of hybrids about
 
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