Re: Opal borellii... or NOT... not!!!

["Raymond Wong" <myapisto@hotmail.com>]

Acutally think I know exactly what this fish is
it looks like a borelli and is sold as one all the time
I have some pictures on my site
and Mike Wise ID'ed it for it
he said
Apistogramma caetei 'bluehead'

http://members.home.net/rwmw/ahongsloi.htm

here's what he said in an e=mail to me

It is your unknown fish. This is a fish I haven't personally seen except in 
pictures. I am pretty sure that it is a fish that the Germans call Blaukopf 
(Bluehead) in Mayland & Bork's book or Steel Blue in Römer's Atlas,  and the 
Japanese (Matuzaka, et. al.) call it New Blue. This is a domestically 
developed fish, originally coming from SE Asia. Mayland & Bork believe it is 
part of the caetei-complex, while Römer believes it is a member of the 
resticulosa-complex. The fish shows more features of resticulosa-complex 
fish, but the head profile and tail pattern are more like caetei. Matuzaka 
believes that it is a cross between species of the two complexes. Who is 
correct?  I don't know. The fish shows none of the irregular scale pattern 
in the caudal peduncle area that most cross-bred apistos show, but the 
highly skewed sex ratio points at something not being quite natural. Mayland 
& Bork mention that the species was established in Europe only by breeding 
domestic males with wild females. Where they got the wild females and how 
they knew they were the same species is beyond me. I bet that they used a 
caetei-complex female (who knows what species). This is bad husbandry if you 
want to keep a species pure. It's OK if you are fixing a color pattern, like 
in certain livebearers, but such fish should never be listed under a 
scientific name. If you like the fish and want to breed it, I'd suggest 
finding a female A. caetei and see what develops. Who knows, if crossed with 
a "Primavera" color form of A. caetei you might get males with both a lot of 
blue and red on the face!


Thank You
Raymond Wong
------------------------------

Please Visit My Aquarium Page : (adding more pix everyday)
(Pictures of my fish,plants,tanks)
http://welcome.to/myapisto
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