I'd guess male Festae too. But it will be easier when it gets bigger. Get that guy a lady! That's when you get the real colors out of em. Go check out
MP_cichlid
Festae thread
MP_cichlid
Festae threadTrue Festae? or No?
- Thread starter Ryan029
- Start date
Hello everyone, I wanted to sort of revive this thread in order to give an update on my little festae. First of all I have been adjusting my tanks as it has grown in order to avoid conflict among tank members. So I have moved my Salvini over to (yet another) aquarium and currently my red terror is in with my JD and syno catfish, that's all. It's actually an extremely calm environment as my JD is about 8 years old and has a very 'old man' temperament. He's too lazy to give a damn in other words lol I have attached some pictures of my red terror and I have a question. It has developed what is in my opinion, considerable 'redness' around the back of it's gills and around it's mouth. Is this normal true festae coloration? Or something sinister? Gill flukes? I have all the medication on planet earth at hand (just for this very occasion lol) but before I do any heavy treating I just wanted to know if you all think there's anything to be concerned about in the first place. Behaviorally, the fish has been 100% normal. It's eating and shows no sign of stress to my eyes. I've never had a fish come down with anything but ich before so if it is something like perhaps gill flukes, I'd like to get on top of things and treat early.
I did end up giving my red terror some medicated flakes treated with Praziquantel (known to treat gill flukes) this morning. Only gave it two flakes and then fed it it's normal diet. It ate just fine. Do you all think I should continue treating? Judging from the pics I've attached is this just normal true festae coloration?
I did end up giving my red terror some medicated flakes treated with Praziquantel (known to treat gill flukes) this morning. Only gave it two flakes and then fed it it's normal diet. It ate just fine. Do you all think I should continue treating? Judging from the pics I've attached is this just normal true festae coloration?
So I thought this might be helpful potentially. Here are a few more pictures... all of the pictures in these last two posts have been taken on the the same day, hours apart....there's a huge difference in coloration and it's got me paranoid I think lol The festae has taken a REAL liking to digging and it's come on just in the last 2 weeks out of no where. I think it's hitting a major developmental phase perhaps and going through some 'growing & changing' ? Anyways here are the latest pics with the darker coloration for comparison. The 'redness' I'm referring to is much less prevalent.
Freshwaterpredators
or
MP_cichlid
would know better then I. But to me it looks normal. The red is less prevalent when his color is darker because he is less irritated or "showing off" less. When the red shows up is when he is coloring up, and that's normal. Especially if he isn't breathing heavily or swimming poorly I wouldn't worry too too much about it. But let's the others chime in too they've raised more Festae then myself.
See I judged it male based on the first pics he posted but these new pics made me question if it was female myself. Female dorsal but I see some spangles in the tail there.
Spangles don't mean much to me tbh, I've seen females with spangles. The body shape, finnage and dorsal does it for me
Personally, I think a 125 would be bare minimum for either male or female. For a pair, I'd look at something like a 240 or 265.
