selecting the best specimen

[cootwarm]

Many of you are probably already aware of this, but it caught me by suprise. I hadn't read anything about this anywhere so I thought I'd pass it on.

I like to start with 3 pairs of apistos. I'd use the dominant male and 2 females to form my trio. One of the extra males I keep in a community tank as a back up. This leaves a male and a female I sell as a pair.

It was probably a dumb assumption, but I always thought the dominant male was the better male. But on a couple occasions now, when I removed the extra fish(2m1f) to a 10 gallon, 1 of the sub-dominant males developed much better colors than the original dominant male.

I suppose I shouldn't be too quick to get rid of the left over fish once a trio forms. :wink:

Michael

 

[farm41]

Somtimes you just never now what you have until that dominant fish is out of the tank

 

[2la]

Dominant is dominant, so it may speak to overall fitness (age, size, aggressive tendencies, trophic competition, etc.) at a single point in time but not necessarily to color or finnage (or other things the hobbyist may deem of higher priority), particularly if the dominant fish is significantly older and thus larger. Being able to keep individual males in separate tanks is a luxury most of us can't afford, unfortunately, but even in the dealer's tanks I tend to look more things than just which fish is dominant, such as body shape, activity level, interactions with other fish, color, finnage, etc. Size is overrated.