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Help with Identification of Victorian Cichlid


zooloobia

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I recently purchased a second hand fish tank which came with several cichlid. All but this one are mbunas. I have kept mbunas for several years and had no problem IDing those but this victorian cichlid, I am not sure about.

Just looking at speacies pics online, this looks very very simillar to Haplochromis sp. 35 (tomato).

I would greatly appreciate it if someone could do an ID.

 

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It does resemble the fish you mentioned but it also resembles other species. Unless you can confirm with breeder its impossible to tell.

The taxonomy of cichlids is largely physiological (appearance based) so any variation from the normal can make a particular fish questionable and hard to identify.

Even some flamebacks like similar to your fish.

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It's only going to be guesses mate,,, all these Vic class species are terribly crossed in oz.

It looks like a (Australian line flameback),,, settled that the accepted flame backs in oz are dirty.

However some fresh locational ones have come in of recent,,,,, the Ruti island flameback is sensational and around in small numbers.

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Victorian haps are notoriously aggressive for small fish... in tanks and in breeding. I remember years ago that no one even wanted to know about these fish. Shops would have 100 in a tank for 5 dollars each and if you bought them it came with a warning of aggression and cross breeding. These guys breed with anything.

Hopefully new strains will be better respected this time around. I doubt there has been a legit victorian in Aus for a very long time until recently.

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^^^^,,, All so true and the last sentence,, yes.

The Ruti island seems to be a smaller specie compared to rest of varients in this class.

Also have found it to be less aggressive compared to all it's counterparts.

Though I do use a active breeding colony of dither fish to co-exsist with the ruti,,,,,, the Pseudotropheus livingstonii.

Both get along famously, and not once crossbred, never seen seperate species courting and no crossed fry.

Most of the Vic's I've seen though apart from ruti, the males do lock in breeding dress and show interest in breeding with anything that moves.

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Thanks for all the quick and valuable replies. Much appreciated. In the last couple of days I have seen the aggressiveness come out. I have this guy + one female in a 65 gallon tank with about 18 mbunas. He has now owns pretty much half of the tank and no other fish other than a male Metriaclima pulpican dares to enter his territory. I think I am going to give it another couple of weeks before I decide if I want to keep it in the tank, get it a new tank and some more victorians or find it a new home.. at the moment it seems to be really stressing the other fish out.

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