Severum growth

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Afternoon all.

The Green looks to be a female from Belem stock (to call it belems a bit misleading, as the sub speices appears to be pretty wide spread in the wild, but, basically, all the domestic sevs are either from notatus, sp.Manause or sp.Belem (usually all mixed together))

Most definately not a rotkeil ;-) Wrong side of the continent im afraid.

And, as with all the "Super red" mongrels, their 100% male. (the females dont show any of the markings, so cannot be sold as "Super red" so generally go out as plain old golds.

I've got to say though, im a bit of a purist when it comes to my Heros, and im not a fan of the super reds at all. To artificial looking for my tastes.

Cheers
Craggy
 
craig_uk;3789978; said:
Afternoon all.

The Green looks to be a female from Belem stock (to call it belems a bit misleading, as the sub speices appears to be pretty wide spread in the wild, but, basically, all the domestic sevs are either from notatus, sp.Manause or sp.Belem (usually all mixed together))

Most definately not a rotkeil ;-) Wrong side of the continent im afraid.

And, as with all the "Super red" mongrels, their 100% male. (the females dont show any of the markings, so cannot be sold as "Super red" so generally go out as plain old golds.

I've got to say though, im a bit of a purist when it comes to my Heros, and im not a fan of the super reds at all. To artificial looking for my tastes.

Cheers
Craggy

This is not completely true on the super reds. I know for a fact that there are a few females coming out that are as orange or close to as orange as the males. A guy that only lives a couple miles from me has a definate super red female. It is blazing orange with no worming on it's face. They are certainly extremely rare though.

I originally thought the same as you that the females came out looking like golds and were either just culld or sold as golds. I now wonder if the breeders are just not selling the females instead to prevent people from breeding them and lowering the sale price on them.

If you could just breed a gold female to a super red male and get super red male fry everyone would be doing it and selling them for $30 a pop. They are not hard to breed, the fry are far from durable but it's certainly not extrememly difficult to get viable fry from them.

Very interesting either way.
 
craig_uk;3789978; said:
Afternoon all.

The Green looks to be a female from Belem stock (to call it belems a bit misleading, as the sub speices appears to be pretty wide spread in the wild, but, basically, all the domestic sevs are either from notatus, sp.Manause or sp.Belem (usually all mixed together))

Most definately not a rotkeil ;-) Wrong side of the continent im afraid.

And, as with all the "Super red" mongrels, their 100% male. (the females dont show any of the markings, so cannot be sold as "Super red" so generally go out as plain old golds.

I've got to say though, im a bit of a purist when it comes to my Heros, and im not a fan of the super reds at all. To artificial looking for my tastes.

Cheers
Craggy

I'm very curious to know the source of the information you provided - that all super red severums are males, and that females don't look as red.

Here is a video from a breeder in Atlanta. He routinely breeds and sells super red severums on Aquabid, under the name "Exotictrading".

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Well shut my mouth ;-)

Interesting you've got to admit. Not one of the members of the heros family shows any facial markings on the females (alright, a bit of a generalisation - I've got a Female notatus with a bit of worming, and the belem females show some faint markings, but still, nothing to compare with the males.)

If you where looking at any of the wild forms of Heros efasciatus, and you saw markings like you see on any of the Super Reds (apparently males and females ;) ) you'd instantly think male.

Bit of a daft analogy, but its sort of like seeing a female peacock with the showy tail feathers.

I suppose its a case of line breeding again eh?

Mind if i borrow a link to the video? The boys at the british cichlid association will be interested to see this.

All the best
Craggy
 
craig_uk;3790154; said:
Well shut my mouth ;-)

Interesting you've got to admit. Not one of the members of the heros family shows any facial markings on the females (alright, a bit of a generalisation - I've got a Female notatus with a bit of worming, and the belem females show some faint markings, but still, nothing to compare with the males). Mine did flash some black bars when they bred, but it's the same for both males and females.

If you where looking at any of the wild forms of Heros efasciatus, and you saw markings like you see on any of the Super Reds (apparently males and females ;) ) you'd instantly think male.

Bit of a daft analogy, but its sort of like seeing a female peacock with the showy tail feathers.

I suppose its a case of line breeding again eh?

I agree that facial marking is probably a general sexual dimorphism in substrate spawning Heros. Female notatus has some markings on the face, but not between the eyes. The mouthbrooding H. severus, however, doesn't seem to have any facial markings at all (they do have different numbers of dots on gill plates).

Another interesting thing about these super red severums is that I've never seen them available under 2-3". I suspect that, like JD suggested, some breeders may wait till they are sexable, then sell males only.

In any events, I'm testing this myself. My red male and gold female spawn regularly but have always eaten the eggs. They spawned again earlier this week and I decided to pull the few remaining eggs and hatch them myself. Got 4 wigglers yesterday (for the lack of methylene blue) - hope they'll make it and I can use them to figure out the genetics. It's going to take longer than the organism I work on, but oh well...

craig_uk;3790154; said:
Mind if i borrow a link to the video? The boys at the british cichlid association will be interested to see this.

All the best
Craggy

If you right-click on the video and select "watch on youtube", you'll be taken to the webpage. I sure hope the owner wouldn't mind.
 
Aye, H.Severus (both male and female) lack the worming, and the diamorphism is ment to be in the gill dots.

Even then, thas not always clear cut.

I've got a Severus from the orinoco thats very heavily spotted (instant male eh?) who was in with a clear cut female (not a spot on her body) until she jumped out of the tank.

Moved him back into a tank with a pair of atabapo severus, and the spotty sod paired off with the atabapo male and started laying eggs. (infact, they both spawned together yesterday - i just let the other sevs eat the eggs)

I'd post a photo up, but their hosted on another forum, and the mods here quickly delete them. Most annoying ;-)

Just shows fish are never as clear cut as they appear eh? lol

As for my information regarding sevs, i learnt alot of a good friend of mine called Jim Dawson (ex president of the yorkshire cichlid group as i remember), Andrew Wood (publishes a magazine here in the UK called cichlidae) and Richard Longly (general SA nut)

Out side of that, i just generally picked it all up over the last 5/6 years.

Currently keeping -
H.severus Orinoco
H.Severus atabapo
H.Efasciatus Manause
H.Efasciatus Belem
H.Efasciatus Rotkeil (Peru)
H.Efasciatus Tapajos
H.Notatus

And 1 gold sev (one of the first i ever got)

So, needless to say, its a nice cross section to base stuff on - but like the saying goes "Every days a school day" lol

And im bloody desperate for H.spurius (found a photo of one the other month - absolutely beautiful ;) )

All the best
Craig
 
those greens had me fooled, i have never had a rotkeil before so i wasn't sure how to identify the juvies at one inch. All i knew was hat they didn't look like the juvenile greens i have kept. any one have adult pics?

Thanks for the input, I know red severums aren t for everyone.

I have heard they they are mostly male before but they have such different body shapes it had me second guessing.
 
hmm maybe it is a hybrid between green and rotkeil? i could have sworn it was a green but it sure is starting to show a nice red collar behind its head... either way they are all turning out nicely :)
 
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