Apistogramma pioroa or megaptera

[Erik82]

Hi all,
I bought a few Apistogramma sp. Is there some one who can tell me if I bought the pioroa or megaptera?

Male 1

Male 2

female 1

 

[Mike Wise]

Looks like A. megaptera (A 166) to me. Are they fully mature with fully developed dorsal fins?

 

[Erik82]

No Mike, they are young males. The "spines" of the dorsal fin are at the min one line at the megaptera right?

 

[Mike Wise]

Give the males a few months. If the dorsal spines are highly serrated, then they're A. piaroa; if moderately serrated (like A. macmasteri), then A. megaptera.

 

[Erik82]

Mike and other, is there a difference between the female breeding dress?
Now I got eggs from the fish, but I don't see any black spots on flank of the female.. In the past I had some A. sp breitbinden. That female had two black spots:

 

[Mike Wise]

Well flank spots on brooding females of many apisto species vary a lot - even from one side of a fish to the other. The original description of A. megaptera by Messa and Lasso (2011) has photos of live specimen taken by Ivan Mikolii. The female is in brood dress and doesn't look much different than the fish in your photo. The only obvious difference is that Mikolii's fish doesn't show any pattern in the caudal fin, but this could be variable, too.

 

[MickeM]

Did you mean like this Mike?? (I will clean the tank..later..!)

Ap. piaroa ???

 

[Frank Hättich]

yes MickeM, your fish is A. piaroa

 

[MickeM]

Great Frank_H!!.. Many thanks for quick reply!!

One female is in a "coco-shell" with eggs/wrigglers since 3 days.. Hoping for the best.. (For safety reason, I took out the 3 "siamensis" + 1 Parotocinclus spec. "Pernambuco" today!! Epiplatys lamottei is still in the tank though!!)
Last female with eggs failed to get fry.. 2 weeks ago!! But that may also have been an issue of "bad/incorrect" waterquality!!

Hope you don`t mind Erik82, I thought it would be a good idea to show pics of the A.piaroa in this thread..and get verification on these species..
For all future Apisto-freaks!! Nice pics BTW!!

 

[Erik82]

Well since a few days my A. megaptera female (with black spot on the flank) is garding her fry

 

[Erik82]

Hi All,
I was curious if some has an picture of a adult female A. megaptera. Does the female also has extended dorsal spines? When I look at the Datz catalog, i would say it could be A. brevis? Only i don't have ane pictures of that female too.

Here below some pictures of the female and one of the male.

 

[Mike Wise]

For me all females of the brevis-group look very similar. It is hard to separate them.

 

[Erik82]

For me all females of the brevis-group look very similar. It is hard to separate them.

And what about the three extended dorsalspines at the female Mike? Is that typicle for A. Megaptera?

 

[Mike Wise]

They are not typical for any brevis-group female until they are old and take on masculine traits.

 

[Erik82]

OK, thanks for your replay. Here the male A. megaptera threatening..

 

[S.k]

Old trade but happy to say ill be getting some of this males offspring