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Haplochromis
sp. "Purple Princess"
Text
and Photo by Wally Cox
Finformation,
August
2003
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I acquired six – 1 1/2" fish from Jeff Natterer of the
Ohio Cichlid Association. He had come to Pittsburgh to judge our Aqua
Show ’03 and was selling fish from his room.
This is a newer Victorian type cichlid. We are not exactly sure where,
when, and by whom these fish were collected. It would seem that during
transport somewhere along the line the paper work was lost. So until
it is re-collected again this fish will never be a described fish.
These fish grow quickly. Since our show in the last week of April
to the writing of this article in the first week of August the males
have almost tripled in size and the females have more than doubled.
They eat everything. I have not found anything they will not take
voraciously, from earthworms, bloodworms, blackworms, flake (all flavors),
pellets of varying sizes, to trout chow. These are the most common
items on the menu; there are of course more things that I have fed
them that are a little out of the ordinary.
With their rapid growth rate they have moved quite often to larger
accommodations. They started out in a well planted twenty-gallon high.
When the aggression levels were too high they were moved into a well
populated fifty-five gallon tank. This tank contained 7 baseball-sized
gold severums, a pair of Archocentrus centrachus, 4 Ctenopoma
acutirostre, and 3 Trichogaster leeri. After about six
weeks in the fifty-five gallon the males’ hierarchy really began
to show. At this point my group was easily sexable. I had 4 males
and 2 females. Just as I decided to move the group again because of
the aggression, they decided to spawn. The largest male was just over
3 inches and the female was 2 inches. The spawning female was removed
and placed in a 2 gallon tank with a softball sized piece of Java
moss, a 6-inch long piece of 1-inch diameter PVC, and a sponge filter.
She remained in this tank for 20 days until she released the 32-1/4
inch fry from her mouth, being a standard mouth brooding cichlid.
The remainder of the group was placed into a severely over populated
90-gallon tank. Its inhabitants are 20 Ctenopoma kingsleyae ranging
from 4 inches to over 10 inches, 5 blue gouramis, 3 pearl gouramis,
1- 8 inch gold severum female, 1 blind chocolate cichlid (rescued),
1 farowella, and 2-7 inch spanner T barbs. The mother was removed
after 3 days and placed in the 90-gallon tank with the herd of others.
The fry were allowed to remain in the 2-gallon tank for 2 weeks. At
the end of the 2 weeks, they were moved into a 5-gallon tank with
a sponge filter. They stayed there for 4 weeks until they seemed a
little crowded, and then were moved into a ten-gallon tank. As for
feeding, live baby brine and microworms were readily taken once a
day. Their feeding was heavy, so some snails were added as a clean
up crew.
All of the fish were a light brown when first acquired. The females
are the standard brown with darker brown vertical barring. There is
a black spot on the gill plate. The dorsal fin is trimmed in red with
faint red spots patterned through out. The caudal fin has a slight
brown honeycomb coloring. After a few weeks, the males began to turn
a shade of yellow. This yellow brown combination did not last long.
The flanks of the fish began to get purple overtones. The males developed
a nice iridescent blue coloration on both lips and jaw area to just
under the eyes reminiscent of an Aulonacara marleri. It also
has the black spot on the gill plate like the female. The dorsal fin
is tipped in red, with a heavier line of black just underneath. There
are red and yellow rows of spots in the dorsal fin. The caudal fin
has lines of red spots following the rays of the fin. The anal fin
has yellow egg spots. These descriptions are unfortunately of sub-adults,
so there could be more changes in the male’s appearance before
it is all said and done.
As I type this article, the Haplochromis sp. purple princess
are wreaking havoc in the 90 gallon. Even with 33 fairly large fish
in the tank with them, these males keep finding one another and going
into battle. These rare and unique fish just keep getting better looking
and more interesting every day. As for the fry, I decided to trade
the first group to Eric Bodrock at All Oddball Aquatics for a group
of less aggressive cichlids (ha-ha) Haplochromis nyererei
"Ruti Island." |
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