differentiating rotpunkt vs honsloi and agassizi vs. norberti

[Paul Evans <pm_evans@yahoo.com>]

I am pulling a swing shift tonight so I spent the
morning in search of apistos.

I drove to a store in San Francisco that was
recomended to me as one that commonly has dwarves.
I was not dissappointed.  They had (well claimed to
anyway) a. agassizi, a. borellii, a. hongsloi, 
a. norberti, a. nijsseni, a. panduro, and a. sp.
rotpunkt.  Had a number of Pelvicachromis species
too.  

Except for the borellii all were *very* juvenile.  
The hongsloi and rotpunkt were in adjacent tanks
and about 3/4" long.  They looked exactally alike
to me.  Granted I am new to this but based on the
pictures I have seen, I was expecting the hongsloi
to be much more high backed and compressed.  These
were not.  Tonight, I reread David Soares article about
complexes.  It mentioned that the Rotpunkts may be
in the the macmasteri complex which surprised me
since in the pictures I have seen, the body shape
seems rather different.  All in all, these fish looked
much more like the pictures of rotpunkts than the
hongsloi.

The agassizii and norberti were in a tank together.
They were only about 1/2" long.  The tank had a note
on it that the ones with a lateral spot were the 
norberti.  They all had a lateral spot but some 
also had a lateral line.  In fact, all the fish 
looked generally like the first picture on the 
agassizi page on www.thekrib.com.  

So, my questions are:  1. do juvenile hongsloi look
like rotpunkt?  If so, is there a good way to tell
them apart?  After looking at a lot of pictures it
looks to me that I could differentiate the norberti
from the agassizi by looking for a black mark covering
the first few rays of the dorsal fin.  Do you think
that would work?  Lastly, at what length does agassizi
start to show sexual dimorphism?

By the way, I had Aqualog and Linke & Staeck
with me but they were not that helpful to me
because I am new at this and because the fish
were so young (and stressed).

I wouldn't mind just getting a half dozen or so
fish from the agassizi/norberti tank and seeing
what happened but the only apisto I presently have
is a female nijsseni that I got before I knew much so
I am staying away from cacauoides complex fish.  My
nijsseni is rather aggressive.  She is probably about
18 months old, when she goes I would not mind having
other fish from that complex.  Actually, after I 
get a better handle on what I am doing and breed a few
easier species, I would like to have more nijsseni.
I would like to get either the hongsloi or the 
agassizi but I don't want my nijsseni to terrorize
any norberti or pay hongsloi prices for rotpunkts.

Lastly, I have seen 'opal' borellii and a number of
stores lately; even a big chain pet super store.  However, they have
all been about
2" long and every single one has been male.  Today
I began wondering if they are being mass bred in 
Singapore and imported like Rams.  I hope not.

Paul Evans



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