Re: Fwd: Re: A. nijsenni (and buying fish)

[Frauley/Elson <fraulels@minet.ca>]

Ed Pon wrote:
> 
- -
> I've not been crazy about cacquitoides (never could spell that) beause
> the wild varieties are relatively plain and the very nicely colored ones
> are all domestically developed strains.  I prefer wild fish, but they
> are not marketable or in great demand.  I'm somewhat ambivalent about
> cockatoo cichlids.

Hi ed,
There's no percentage in debating beauty, but I do have a different
opinion on this one. Most wild cacatuoides are quite plain to my eye,
especially blue ones. I like their form, but colour-wise, you have a
good point. 
However, I had a wild yellow-type cacatuoides that I bought because of
their immense dorsal extensions. In the same box from Peru, there were
males with small red patches in the caudal, and moderate dorsals. My
young, a possible inadvertant crossing of the two wild strains (but
maybe not, as they were said to be from the same location) gave me some
males with the upper 25% of their caudal richly marked in red and black,
and a tall orange-tipped dorsal. They were nice, f-1 unselected fish.
Last month's 7 day sub-zero blackout ended that experiment, but I swear,
they WERE real. The pretty ones aren't all selected forms.
- -Gary (defender of cacatuoides)