What kind of Severum is this?

[PittsburghFishGuy]

I purchased 4 Severum that were advertised as Rotkeil Severum back in May from Imperial Tropicals. I had just got a 125 gallon new tank and have always wanted to have Rotkeils. My local lfs never have any and said they couldn't even order them for me.
The fish arrived in good heath and are already over 3 inches. The problem is that they show barely any color at all and definately no red. I noticed that they all have 9 stress bars and i know Rotkeil are only supposed to have 8. The 7th bar on all 4 are partial bars. Some of them fuse with the 8th bar. One has one that is very thin and seems to be getting smaller as it grows.
What kind of Severum do i have and is there any chance they will ever color up as good as a Rotkeil? Thank you.

 

[Rocksor]

neutrino

 

[neutrino]

Difficult to say at that size. Aside from counting bars, and it's possible for most fish with vertical stress bars to have split bars, they're otherwise virtually indistinguishable from a regular green severum until they get older. The red doesn't show up much before they get 3-4 inches ime, depending on food, water, individual fish. Takes a year or so to really develop and continues to get better even after that-- my experience (and I've had a lot of them).

No personal experience with Imperial Tropicals, but I've seen reasonably positive comments about them. I've been on their website and my impression is it's a big place and with popular species you can expect them to be tank raised in volume, so you might get some variable quality, and rotkeils vary in their red coloration, anyway. So imo feed them a quality food without a lot of grains and starches, let them get 3-4 inches, and by then you should start seeing enough red beginning to develop to be encouraging they're rotkeils, assuming they are.

Unless you're impatient and would like to spend more and get some from Rapps or another more exclusive seller with the hopes of high end quality.

 

[neutrino]

...As an afterthought, I avoid getting into recommending foods-- most of the time, there are exceptions. I've done some pretty thorough food testing, know what I like and what I don't, and not interested in debating the subject. But in this case, I can tell you my rotkeils looked really good on NLS, including their Thera-A. Not the only food I like or use, but rotkeils I've had like it and looked good on it, especially as adults.

 

[PittsburghFishGuy]

Difficult to say at that size. Aside from counting bars, and it's possible for most fish with vertical stress bars to have split bars, they're otherwise virtually indistinguishable from a regular green severum until they get older. The red doesn't show up much before they get 3-4 inches ime, depending on food, water, individual fish. Takes a year or so to really develop and continues to get better even after that-- my experience (and I've had a lot of them).

No personal experience with Imperial Tropicals, but I've seen reasonably positive comments about them. I've been on their website and my impression is it's a big place and with popular species you can expect them to be tank raised in volume, so you might get some variable quality, and rotkeils vary in their red coloration, anyway. So imo feed them a quality food without a lot of grains and starches, let them get 3-4 inches, and by then you should start seeing enough red beginning to develop to be encouraging they're rotkeils, assuming they are.

Unless you're impatient and would like to spend more and get some from Rapps or another more exclusive seller with the hopes of high end quality.

Thank you. I am going to wait and see how they turn out. I have always been happy with my purchases from Imperial Tropicals. I sent them am email with pictures of the fish last week. They sent me free of charge 4 more fish to replace the first 4 and were not from the same batch. They are barely over 1 inch but the look identical to the first 4 that i got from them. They all have the partial 7th bar. I am guessing they are from the same breeding pair.
I am new to this forum and was not aware of the best place to buy good quality Rotkeil. I have been reading a bunch of threads and if these fish don't turn out well, i will be buying some from Jeff Rapps for sure.
I am feeding them NLS and some frozen food. I have been thinking about trying Repashy buy i don't know if any of their formulas would be good for Severum.