regani or notophthalmus?

[softturtle]

Well, I have been watching these "regani" develope into cool little pikes. But I'm am starting to doubt that these are regani, and I'm not sure they are notophthalmus either.

Here is an account from Vinny Kutty------In C. regani, C. notophthalmus, and C. sp. aff. heckeli and C. wallaci, the females have ocelli (spots) on the dorsal fin. These spots are always black and positioned in the posterior dorsal fin. However, the spots may be single or number up to four. In C. regani, the spots have a white ring around it, while C. notophthalmus have a red ring around their usually single spot. It is very rare to find a female lacking all dorsal fin markings. This characteristic is very varied depending on geographic locations and even within a brood of fry.----------------------------------------

So what I have is two dorsal ocelli surrounded by red. There looks to be a little white around the spots in these pictures, but it was just from the flash. I have a male (had more) and they do not show freestanding and elongated front spines on the dorsal that noto males are known to have. I will try to get pics pics of the remaining male and better pics of the females dorsal.

So lets hear what everyone has to say... What do you think they are? Sorry for the bad pics, I'm not used to taking pictures of a 3" fish.

 

[Scatocephalus]

Over the past couple of years imports from the Orinoco region of Venezeula have been farily common. There is a race of regani that come from this area that show a great deal of red in their dorsal. Cr. regani "Orinoco". If I had to guess this is what I would say your fish are. Oh, and I have seen this fish with as many as three spots.

(The above pictures come from Tangled Up In Cichlids and were taken by Jeff Rapps)

Note the male's dorsal. More on this later.

Too add, true nothophthalmus are very rare in the hobby so right off the bat I tend to discount that they are nothophthalmus. Here are some true nothos:

(the above pictures come from the Cichlid Room Companion and were taken be Lee Newman)

The males may be who holds the key to identification. Male notophthalmus have the first couple of dorsal spines extend above the rest of their dorsal spines. Note his dorsal in the above pics. Not unlike a male blue ram. Male regani have spines that are all the same length.

Get us a picture of your male with his dorsal extended. That may be the key.

 

[softturtle]

I have a friend who took some of the orinoco's home from the ACA last year (before they were refered to as regani- they were just called orinoco dwarf pikes- hahaha) and they do show a lot of red on the dorsal, but you can clearly see the white ring around it (like in your picture). I wish I had a camera with a macro setting, so I could just take a picture of the dorsal fin.

And like I was saying in the first post, the male does not show the extended spines that noto's show. But he is also the runt of the group and might not be mature. He is about .75 smaller (about 2") than the females as of now and rarely shows any colors. I'm guessing it is just some type of regani varient like you said, but the red outlined ocelli is just throwing me off a bit.

I'll try to get pics of the male and we'll see if we can't get to the bottom of this. Thanks

 

[Peanut_Power]

Regani are cool because they can have such variable dorsal spots, and coloring. There are so many different variants of dwarfs though, its not even funny. The TEFE variant is especially gorgeous with MULTIPLE dorsal spots in females...

 

[softturtle]

Regani are cool because they can have such variable dorsal spots, and coloring. There are so many different variants of dwarfs though, its not even funny. The TEFE variant is especially gorgeous with MULTIPLE dorsal spots in females...

My two females both have two spots. I have seen female reganis with 3 ocelli and have heard of ones with more.