Fun with Paratheraps Bifasciatum!

[TheFishGuy]

I've been a fan of the vieja, theraps, paratheraps, chuco complex for many years. It started 21 years ago when I saw a beautiful black belt in the pet store I worked at in high school. I was fourteen and he was in a 20H. Stark white with a black as black can be band, red head and caudal fin. You remember what they used to look like! He was awesome but I didn't have room... That's what started it all...

Currently I keep;

Fenestratus:


Argentea:


Synspilum:


And of course Bifas:


I got hooked on bifas when I was at a fellow Ohio Cichlid Associations board members house for a board meeting in December of 2008. He had a group growing out in a 125 and I was thoroughly impressed! I asked if when he attained a pair if I could have dibs on out casts... We'll get back to that in a minute...

The OCA's winter auction arrived in Feb of 2009 (This year it's Feb 13th) where I bid on and won a bag of six bifas fry! I was extremely excited! Almost simultaneously a friend of mine won a bag of six on Aquabid to stock his 240. His grew up and did great, mine on the other hand... Well, one rose up and killed the other five almost over night! Sadly the last one died about two months ago... We'll get back to this in a minute too...

In the summer of 2009 I was visiting another board members fishroom and helping him with his computer when we started talking about bifas. (Imagine that) To my great surprise he had one he said I could have! It was left over from a spawn... The one he couldn't net... And let me tell you, we had a heck of time catching it! He was big guy, atleast 8"... He was told when he got the parents that they were of the red strain...
Here's a picture:


In the Fall of 2009 a fellow member of the OCA brought me a gift, his wild caught Paratheraps Bifasciatum with a split dorsal fin from the Rio Chaca Max!
Here it is:


Then the 2009 OCA Extravaganza fell upon us where a bifas from that group I saw in Dec 2008 was entered in the show. Crushing news came to the owner from Willem Heijns (one of our judges) who deemed the bifas a hybrid... The owners plan was to euthanize, seing as I run a rescue and all I couldn't let that happen. So on the way home from the event I stopped and picked them all up... Adding to the pair he had already given me, and another board member gave me his lone male too!
Here's one of them:


Quite similar to the one I got from the other board member, but in person they look slightly different. I do not think they are related in any way.

You remember my friend who stocked his 240 with bifas about the same time mine were all getting wacked by their older sybling... Well, I just got all of his fish last weekend which consisted of all six of his bifas!


Looks somewhat similar to the Rio Chaca Max bifas eh? Definately not as vibrant in color but very similar in color markings and such...

I'd really like to breed some bifas but am afraid with that "hybrid" word getting thrown around! I would like to breed the Chaca Max with one of the bifas that came from my friends 240 to introduce new blood. Is this a good idea? What would you do??

Consider this, two of the bifas that came from my friends 240 have paired off and laid eggs in his tank and are doing the dance here... Problem is he looks a little... well... odd... There's no way to know if he's related to the other five. With unreliable sources such as auctions you never know what you're gonna get... Especially with fish from this complex looking all the same at one inch...

This is the male that wants to spawn:




And here's his woman:


So I ask again... what would you do?

[Piotr Koba]

So your pair is two different forms? I'm not the follower of mixing different forms of even the same species. It always makes misunderstandings, when someone buy such fish and has no idea what they are (similar thread was held here few weeks ago).

[TheFishGuy]

The pair that formed in my friendss 240 gallon is what you see. I had put them in a seperate tank last weekend when I got them, they had not colored up yet due to the stress of the move. I was out of town for the begining of the week and was shocked to see how different he looks now!

What I would like to do is breed these two:




The second pictured is wild caught, the first pictured is from my friend with the 240 gallon.

I have seen the result of too much in breeding with the spilurus I just returned... I'm attempting to want to avoid that by introducing new blood from the wild caught fish. The two seem similar enough in appearance to me and I wanted opinions on the matter

[Piotr Koba]

Hmmm I think they are quite similar, but I'll let the opinion to specialists.

[Lee Nuttall]

Your first fish in the thread looks like hartwegi.

[TheFishGuy]

He's young... but when he's in breeding dress it's obvious... Doesn't hartwegi have a more mottled look in the face?

[Dan Woodland]

You're asking the near impossible here. No one except maybe Juan Miguel could definitively "identify" these fish.

My suggestion is, they are your fish, if you breed them and don't know the lineage and you distribute them you must be honest about their family tree. When you do sell or give way fry from these fish you should include the same type of declaimer you received when you took them from Kyle’s.

PS. The reason it is nearly impossible to ID these fish let alone any Cichlid like this is their extreme variability along with being available from multiple locations, geez, unless you have a solid line to their source river or lake you’ll never be able to tell.

[Dean Hougen]

You're asking the near impossible here. No one except maybe Juan Miguel could definitively "identify" these fish.

My suggestion is, they are your fish, if you breed them and don't know the lineage and you distribute them you must be honest about their family tree. When you do sell or give way fry from these fish you should include the same type of declaimer you received when you took them from Kyle’s.

PS. The reason it is nearly impossible to ID these fish let alone any Cichlid like this is their extreme variability along with being available from multiple locations, geez, unless you have a solid line to their source river or lake you’ll never be able to tell.

Agreed on all counts.


Dean

[TheFishGuy]

I'm not interested in breeding the ones that were deemed hybrids.

I'm interested in breeding the wild caught one to the ones from my friends 240 which look very similar...

So what you're saying is to wait until I get my hands on another Chaca Max Bifas or six?

I want to do what's right, I don't want to put hybrids back into the hobby...

[Rich Kastor]

Hartwegi yes?

[TheFishGuy]

The fenestartus has a completely different mouth shape and his head is slowly turning red...

The fenestratus could be another thread...

[Dan Woodland]

I'm not interested in breeding the ones that were deemed hybrids.

I'm interested in breeding the wild caught one to the ones from my friends 240 which look very similar...

So what you're saying is to wait until I get my hands on another Chaca Max Bifas or six?

I want to do what's right, I don't want to put hybrids back into the hobby...

If you are a purist then you need to wait until you acquire more Rio Chaca Max(??) to breed them with (I thought P.fenestratus came from Chaca Max and bifasciatus came from Nututun, Arroyo Cristal, Laguna Noh, Rio Lacanjá, and Rio Oxolotán). I think if you are not sure then don't try breeding or keeping them together. I believe you need to keep like fish from like environments/locations together in case later on they are described as a different species.

Recently at a club meeting a guy asked if he should keep to "similar" but vastly different looking Geophagus for breeding. I suggested he keep them separate as mentioned above, he protested. When I asked if these fish were from the same river he said no, it turned out they were from areas very far apart. I told him the story of Cichla and Discus now having more than one or two species as previously thought and he should treat them as if it could happen to them as well.

[Willem Heijns]

So far I have tried (and managed) to stay away from identifying species from pictures on the Internet. Therefore I will not comment on the ID of any of the fish in this thread (sorry, Jonathan).

I am kind of a purist myself, although I am starting to doubt whether this will be successful in the long run. When it comes to Paratheraps species it is, like Dan and other have stated, practically impossible to tell specimens apart without knowledge about their provenance. For your convenience I include a map showing the distribution of the species currently assigned to Paratheraps.



@Dan: there is no such river as Nututun. Just south of Palenque there is a little restaurant with that name right on the banks of the Río Chacamax, a tributary to the Río Usumacinta.

[cedricguppy]

Hello :

Paratheraps fenestratus ou Vieja fenestrata ??? Je m'y perd un peu!

Paratheraps fenestratus or Vieja fenestrata?? I myself lost a little!

http://aqualoury.fr.gd/Vieja-fenestrata.htm

[Dan Woodland]

You're right Willem, I was thinking place not river.

Thanks for the map...

[Bas Pels]

Hello :

Paratheraps fenestratus or Vieja fenestrata?? I myself lost a little!

It's the same fish

What genus name one uses, has to do with opinions on details which may best be kept out of this discussion. All speciesnames for central american cichlids are used only once. Therefore, whatever genus, of you recognize the species name, it must be the same fish.

The fifference between fenestratus and fenestrata (you can also find fenestratum) has to do with grammar: the genus has a grammatical gender, and the species name will have to adapt

Again, nothing to worry about

[TheFishGuy]

Question 1.)
Ok... The bifas I'm refering to as the rio Chacamax Bifas came from Scott Myers. Scott said he got it from Dan Woodland. Dan, is this true or did I miss something? Scott likes to show fish, and a fish with a split dorsal is no good to him.

Question 2.)

I understand the purist points and would like to adhear to them. That being said five of the six I got from my friend with the 240 all look the same. If I decide to breed from those five they will be deemed an aquarium strain yes? So simply label them Paratheraps Bifasciatum. That's what he bought them as and that's what he gave them to me as.

Question 3.)

I'm simply using the Rio Chacamax fish as what a bifas is supposed to look like as I was told it was wild caught. Am I wrong in thinking this way?

[Willem Heijns]

Question 1.)
I have no idea

Question 2.)
Your five fish looking the same doesn't mean much. Paratheraps species all look more or less the same and there is a lot of intraspecific variability. Paratheraps bifasciatus from the Río Chacamax look diiferent from those from the Río Candelaria. In the latter river they look much the same as Vieja synspila. Confusing, eh?
As for the right name: you believe the ID given to you by your friend is right because he believes the name he got from his supplier was/is right. No way to check that. Or?

Question 3.)
See above. No population of Paratheraps bifasciatus can be the "best" representative of the species. Too much variability.

If you want to adhere to the purists' point of view there will be no breeding without exact knowledge of the provenance of your fish. If you don't know where they come from, don't breed them.

[TheFishGuy]

Ok, then hopefully Dan can clear things up for me on the one fish I have.

So... don't breed them then... OK... No problem That just opens up another tank!

Thank you for your response!

[Dan Woodland]

Question 1.)
Ok... The bifas I'm refering to as the rio Chacamax Bifas came from Scott Myers. Scott said he got it from Dan Woodland. Dan, is this true or did I miss something? Scott likes to show fish, and a fish with a split dorsal is no good to him.

Yes, Scott received some wild Rio Chacamax Paratheraps bifasciatus from me. After that I can't say what Scott has as he searches for show fish. You'd have to ask him what he ended up giving you.

Question 2.) and Question 3.)

See Willem's comments.