P. taeniatus ‘Moliwe’ or ‘Nigeria Red'

[ryanjury]

Hi everyone I am hoping someone can shed some light on these fish..

Firstly the story behind them, P. taeniatus are quite rare in the country, someone I know got some 'moliwe' and bred them so I got a bunch off him. He also sent me a pair of 'Nigeria reds'.

I have noticed variation in the moliwe males that I have grown out, mainly differences in tail colour and one male has a nice red check stripe. This concerns me about these fish as I would have expected fry to come out the same. I have no photos of females as I lost the only one that I had with the group of males and have just got some smaller ones that are in a tank where I cannot get photos.

Then onto the Nigerian reds, the female looks like what I would expect her to (maybe even nigerian green?), but the male doesn't seem to be the right colour and his tail comes to a point (which I believe means he isn't P. Taeniatus). Meaning I shouldn't breed these 2 fish together..

So my questions.
1. Are my Moliwe true - why are they showing variation in the males that have grown out?

2. Are my Nigerian reds actually nigerian reds - particularly the male?

3. If the nigerian red male is actually a pulcher (or hybrid) would I be wrong to put the nigerian red female to the nice male with a check stripe as they are the same species just different variants?

My main reference is
http://www.tedsfishroom.com/wp/imag.../west-african-cichlids/pelvicachromis-gallery

Anyway here are the pics sorry about the terrible quality of them but hopefully they are good enough to comment on.
Here are the Moliwe
Male with red check stripe

Male without check stripe

Group of males (showing difference)

Same group with more natural colour

And onto the Nigerian reds
Here is the pair

Again

Female

Male

Anyway thanks for any help that anyone can offer, I really want to find out what these guys are if they are P. taeniatus then I really want to breed them and get them out there

 

[aquaticclarity]

Welcome to the forum Ryan!

The Moliwe males look to be a bit of a mess in terms of color and spot patterns. I'll yield to Ted's thoughts but they don't look to be pure Moliwe to me.

The "Nigerian Red" male is Pelvicachromis pulcher without question. The female is a P. taenistus but I'd be hard pressed to tell you what location or color type.

What country are you in by the way?

Jeff

 

[Bilbo]

The Moliwe look pretty stunning up close but maybe that is because I have never seen them here before.

 

[ryanjury]

Hi Jeff thanks for the welcome and your help, I did think I was a member here but must have got lost so joined again

I just updated my profile but I am from New Zealand, Bilbo lives around the corner and suggested I post up here as Ted (I have been using his page for reference) was a member and maybe able to help.


I was pretty sure on the Pulcher for the 'nigerian red male' and concerned about the variation in the 'moliwe' too. It is very hard for us here to comment as I have never seen what I could guarantee was a pure example of either fish so had nothing to compare it to.

 

[tjudy]

The 'Nigerian Red' male is a P. pulcher. In the past couple years there is a strain of P. pulcher being sold as 'Nogerian Red', which is really confusing since the P. taeniatus 'Nigeria Red' has been established in the hobby for 20+ years.

The female in those pictures, in my opinion, is your P. taeniatus 'Moliwe' female. The females of Nigerian P. taeniatus have less spotting in the dorsal than Moliwe does. Also, Nigerian females usually have yellow in the caudal fin. In the image of the Nigeria Green in my gallery (a wild fish) you can see that yellow a little bit. The red in the cheek of the female is also indicative of a female from Cameroon... not Nigeria, where the females are all yellow-cheeked. The females of the known wild Nigerian forms are indistinguishable from each other. It is the males that earn the color names.

Your P. taeniatus are very diverse. Probably too diverse to be pure Moliwe, though that population (like all of them) is highly variable. Moliwe males usually have a lot of spots in the tail compared to other Cameroon varieties. And those spots are flat black on a yellow background. Other varieties have ocelli with halos. I see halos around some of the spot of yours, and one of the males has virtually no spots at all. What I suspect is that the mother of these fish was not a Moliwe female. She may have been from far southern Cameroon (Lobe River system or further south) where the males have no spots at all.

Since the fish are so rare in New Zealand I would take the female that you have with the pulcher and breed it to the male P. taeniatus with the most spots and call the offspring 'tank strain P. taeniatus'. That would be an accurate description.

 

[ryanjury]

Thanks Ted, may I also say how awesome your galleries are on your site they are very helpful when trying to find photos of these types of fish as internet searches bring up all sorts of random stuff..

I will select the best male for this female from the bunch that I have, would you suggest I bred from the one that has 2 distinct spots on his tail in the photos? Are you suggesting going for tail spots because that is what the female has? What about the one with the nice big red blaze on his check? He is awesome but has no tail spots.

I will try and get some photos of the 'moliwe' females to try and get direction on where to go with them but from memory they had no tail spots either so maybe they would be better partners for the one with the red check stripe and almost no tail spots.

 

[tjudy]

My suggestion is that you breed the P. taeniatus female with one of your P. taeniatus males, but do not use the location designation (Moliwe) in describing the fish anymore. I would call them all 'tank strain', and there is nothing wrong with that. Some of the nicest looking and best breeding fish I have had over the years were tank strains. The P. taeniatus 'Nigeria Red' (also called 'Red Cheek') is a tank strain... the only wild color forms with the 'Nigeria' designation are 'yellow' and 'green'. The only red variety from Nigeria is 'Isokpo', and it is probably the precursor for the red tank strains.

The number of spots on females is not an indication of location, though the Moliwe population is more spotty than others. This led to some imports from Moliwe being referred to as P. taeniatus 'Spotty' a few years ago, but they were really nothing new.