The Cichlid Room Companion

I found the fish I have with the lateral line on maliwidream and they are called Lethrinops lethrinus. But I stilll say that O.tetrastigma and "false" T. intermedius are the same fish, by the way my two groups look and behave.

s4surf wrote:Is it possible that these fish with the horizontal black line are the Tetrastigma, and the ones with the three spots are the false
Intermedius?

Steve

Sorry it took so long to respond. My tetrastigma's showed both of those color schemes during their life at one time or another.

I guess the only true way to identify, is to do a lateral line scale count and fin ray count. Compare the count to what the books say (or web).

My tetrastigmas got to be around 5 1/2"s at full grown. Not sure about intermedius full size. The one species of Tramitichromis that I've kept was smaller for sure, but that's not saying anything definitive either.

I am surprised that nobody has brought this up and if it has then please forgive me. Tramitichromis sp intermedius always have egg streaks (for lack of a better name) and as for the Otopharynx tetrastigma they have egg spots and this is how I tell the difference as it is an easy way to tell them apart. There may be a few Otopharynx species with egg streaks but they are always seem to be faint and skinny where the sp intermedius they are very striking. As far as size of the sp intermedius have seen them up to 6.5" but at 3 years of age they are usually around 5"-6" for a typical male.

I have not heard that stated before, but my friend and I did notice the streaks on our Intermedius sp? But the Tetrastigma's he bought seem to have the same streaks and not eggspots. Dykemyster,do you have any Tetrastigma's that you could share a picture of for comparision?

Oh, I believe we figured out what the fish with the stripes he got through the auction as tetrastigma were, Lethrinops Lethrinus. Now that they have grown out a bit, they do look like the profile pictures I have been able to find so far.

thanks,
steve

It would be helpful if anyone could post pics of either of these fish.
Thanks in advance

dykemyster wrote:I am surprised that nobody has brought this up and if it has then please forgive me. Tramitichromis sp intermedius always have egg streaks (for lack of a better name) and as for the Otopharynx tetrastigma they have egg spots and this is how I tell the difference as it is an easy way to tell them apart. There may be a few Otopharynx species with egg streaks but they are always seem to be faint and skinny where the sp intermedius they are very striking. As far as size of the sp intermedius have seen them up to 6.5" but at 3 years of age they are usually around 5"-6" for a typical male.

Erik I think it just varies with Otopharynx tetrastigma bloodlines. But every photo I have seen of them show egg streaks:

http://www.malawi-dream.info/Otopharynx_tetrastigma.htm
http://www.malawimayhem.com/profile_show.php?id=391
http://images.google.com/images?q=otoph ... etrastigma

Hell there's even a few egg streaks in this photo of a dead wild male:
http://malawicichlids.com/mw08079.htm

And here's Tramitichromis sp. 'false intermedius'

http://images.google.com/images?q=trami ... ntermedius



I just pulled up pictures of O. tetrastigma on my Malawi CD-ROM and took screenshots. In the photo of the male there are not as extreme but slanted eggspots as well:




And pics of the real Tramitichromis intermedius: http://www.malawi-dream.info/Tramitichr ... medius.htm
And of a juvenile about 1-2":


Here's what I think... I think SOME 'false intermedius' out there are pure O. tetrastigma. Others that look more like this:
are obviously several generations removed from the wild. Dave Schumacher actually said he showed Ad Konings that photo (correct me if I am wrong Dave if you read this!) and Ad said he has never seen any fish remotely close to that color wise. So my assumption is that strain was either line bred, hybridized accidentally at some point, or was just inbred too much... It IS O. tetrastigma, but it is just a little off with colors and everything (could just be a different variant though!).

I do think that the original poster of the thread, his fish are pure O. tetrastigma no question about it though.
I believe these are pure O. tetrastigma:
viewtopic.php?p=40038#p40038
viewtopic.php?p=42122#p42122
viewtopic.php?p=44614#p44614

2.5" juvie from parents I bought from Eric as T. intermedius
http://s866.photobucket.com/albums/ab22 ... G_0524.jpg