Paratilapia polleni

[MooseTheWizard]

I have had some friends say I should do threads for some of my more interesting fish. I know this guy isn't exactly rare, but they're quite uncommon in my area and I see a lot of people asking for information about them.

I picked this guy up several months ago now (don't remember when, I'll have to dig up his receipt later on) and this pic is one of the earliest I took of him.



I had been looking into these fish and found one by chance at a local store. $15 later he was mine.

He is now quite the beast, but still has quite some growing to do. He is housed with 5 rope fish, 1 P. teugelsi, 1 P. weeksii, 1 P. senegalus, and 1 P. delhezi in a 125 gallon tank (72"x18" footprint).

Here is a video showing all of my tanks in which this fish is shown.

 

[james99]

Very cool fish. I have one myself that I'm growing out, he's about 5" now.

 

[jclyde13]

Very nice. I got one in October at around 2". I'd say he's probably a bit under 4" now.

 

[MooseTheWizard]

Very nice. I got one in October at around 2". I'd say he's probably a bit under 4" now.

He’ll be doubling in size in a few months. They grow quick.

 

[Rhykiru]

Very nice fish, would love to see more pictures. I just got a 1.5" one two weeks ago from my LFS for $9. He was the only polleni in the tank and was unlabeled but his eye color/pattern was a dead giveaway. I'm excited to see him grow! Still very shy of me right now though while in quarantine.

 

[duanes]

There are a number (maybe half dozen)of Paratilapia species that are often lumped together as polleni.
Here is P polleni species small spot

and P species Andapa

they are often referred to by collection point , until scientifically (officially) described

 

[jclyde13]

Mine was labeled as "Paratilapia bleekeri" at the LFS, so I'm not sure if I'll ever know for sure exactly what it is. My understanding is that Paratilapia bleekeri is a defunct name for the "large spot" variety, which mine certainly is not.

 

[MooseTheWizard]

The small spot variety is more common and are regularly captive bred as far as I know. Most polleni I see are small spot. I’ll throw some more pics up this week.

 

[duanes]

Colors vary a lot with age, mood, etc. My male "small spot" usually conceald spots more and more as he aged, whereas, the females retained them, unless in a spawning mode.

but also changed to mimic substrate and back ground



The male in my pics was @ 10" at the time

 

[Predator07]

Is a polleni consider African cichlid or American cichlid ???