The white hot flame.

White morphs of aquarium fish are relatively easy to find in aquaria. Albino Giant Danios, Convict cichlids, Tiger Barbs, Oscars, Kribensis, Guppies and Mollys are commonly found in pet shops, as are leucistic morphs of Bristlenose and Sailfin plecs. Leucistic morphs occur when there is a lack of melanin pigment (the pigment that causes dark colours in organisms) over the body, but not on the eyes. You may have read Jon’s blog this morning whereby he mentions some white Firemouth cichlids. These are common aquarium fish, mainly bought for their attractive red throats and ease of care and breeding. The photo below shows a male engaged in a visual threat display.

I will now take the time to completely move off topic and talk about visual threat displays in cichlids. Firemouths and their genus (Thorichthys) are one of the few cichlids that have evolved a mechanism to reduce the amount of energy expended when defending their territory. Cichlids as a group are extremely territorial, and males usually go for the full blown method of defence; attack. As a way of defending your livelihood, it is a good technique. It is fast, as the biggest male usually wins, but often wounds are sustained which need healing. This healing, together with the actual act of fighting, incurs a cost to the fish, that of using energy from food to provide energy to perform these two acts. This energy would have been spent normally on getting big, and thus the fish is able to win more fights. Cichlids don’t have great eye sight, and as they usually live at the bottom of rivers and lakes, visuals are not normally that important, so they are usually dull in colour, or coloured in very obvious patterns (the convict is a good example, being banded completely in black and white). Firemouths have however evolved a method of defence which reduces the energy lost by fighting. The red throat from which they get their common name can be expanded to produce a very obvious signal. Indeed, in a study by Evans and Norris (1996), males with larger and redder throats won more display conflicts than those that did not, regardless of size! So, a very large, but dull male would lose to a colourful, but much smaller male. Only if the opponents are matched in colour will they actually fight. Interestingly, and again, in opposition to most cichlids, female Thorichthys are almost as colourful as males, but smaller. In normal cichlid pairs, the male defends the territory, leaving the female to tend the eggs and fry, but with these guys, both sexes help defend. This makes the territory more secure, and ensures better survival for the fry.

But how have they evolved this method of display? With a cichlids standard eye sight and choice of habitat this display would not really be seen! It would seem then that Thorichthys have evolved better eyesight than normal cichlids, but also live in clearer waters where they can see each other properly. But to my knowledge this experiment has never been carried out! Never mind. Interestingly, you may have seen Jon or I blogging about out Thorichthys sp. “Mixteco Blue”, an undiscribed species. These guys don’t have the same throats as Firemouths, but it will be interesting to see if they have the same displays. Anyway, to the crux of this blog.

Jon spoke about white Firemouths the other day (photo above), presumably these are either albinos, or leucistic. Either way, these guys don’t have the red throats that are as we have seen an integral part of their lifestyle. So, will this change their display? I would expect that it does. If we can get hold of some of these guys and raise them to adulthood, we will be able to perform experiments on them to see if the display is actually present or if they omit it completely and resort straight away to violence. If they do try to display, what will the outcome be? As the red is reduced drastically, with they just give up and fight? But my main point is that if these fish do display to each other, fail to resolve the struggle visually and end up fighting, is it right to breed fish which are unable to perform their natural behaviour? Personally, I don’t think it is. We will certainly be having a go at breeding them, but not to sell on the offspring, but just to see if there is any change in behaviour, but I am sure most who keep them will not be so scrupulous. I would love to know if it is just me who thinks this, or if I have any more support out there!

A non-cryptozoological trip to Redditch

You should all have by now read Ross’ turn of events regarding last Sunday’s auction. Now, I am not going to attempt to pretend that this was a purely cryptozoological trip, far from it; it was a chance for those who went to get their hands on some great new fish. Ross wanted to get his tanks started with something attractive, but easy to keep; Jon wanted anything with a sp. “something” at the end of its name; Emma wanted some fish for her community tanks; and I wanted both anything with sp. “something” (this means that this certain fish has not been scientifically described, but it is probably from the genus before the “sp.” part. So, Cryptoheros sp. "Honduran red point" relates to an undiscribed cichlid from the Cryptoheros genus, probably from Honduras) and something to sit with a couple of other medium sized cichlids in a 3ft tank opposite my chair to entertain me.

After paying the rather high entry fee, we were given a load of free tubs of food, which we worked out as being worth about £5 more than the entry ticket, so I wasn’t too disappointed. After a quick general meeting (which none of our party had much to say, we were not members), we listened to a talk by Bernd Degen, a Discus breeder and show master for over 30 years. He talked about first showing Discus (with some great photos of the massive Japanese shows) and some of the techniques people use to get that “perfect” discus, then he moved on to a talk about keeping discus in a planted aquarium, something I have always advocated.

After a break, the auction began. The first lot was exactly what I wanted, a 4” male Nandopsis salvini, a medium sized predatory cichlid from Guatemala. This is a stunning fish not that often seen in the shops. When it is, it is usual £5+ for a juvenile about 1-2” long. My male over 8 times that size for £8 was a bargain.

From then on in, our table ended up buying about12-15 lots of fish; I cannot even remember what we got! Emma got hold of her community angelfish and an unusual species of Corydoras catfish, Jon got his beloved Rams (at about half the cost of buying from a shop, and better quality) as well as Aequidens sp. “Peru” (a nice smallish cichlid, similar to the hobby staple the Blue Acara, see top photo); whilst Ross ended up with another undiscribed species (Krobia sp. “red cheek” if you are interested) and various other fish to fill his tanks up with. I got myself a group of Thorichthys sp. 'Mixteco Blue' (see bottom photo) which are currently sat in Jon’s local the Farmer’s Arms. These cost me about £3 for 8 youngsters. This is just plain stupid!

Following from the excitement of the auction, we had Alf Stalsberg, a writer and traveller who was speaking about Aequidens sp. “Silver Saum”. Time for taxonomic cock up! Aquarists may well have heard of a fish called a “Green Terror” (why? Because they are generally a metallic green, and are seriously aggressive). Now, this was thought to be a species called Aequidens rivulatus. This was debunked a good few years back, and the hobby’s fish is now known as A. sp. “Gold Saum” because of the gold edges to the fins. A. sp. “Silver Saum” is very similar, but has silver edges to the fins. Stalsberg went out to collect these fish, and found that these three cichlids represented different species. Now, the Americans (his words not mine!) “walked in and think they know everything!” and said that this was rubbish, A. rivulatus was the species in the hobby, and the others were just geographical variants. Well, says Stalsberg, do variants of a species occurring in the same river system breed only with fish with their own colour edging? No says he, they would all breed together. The fact they he has witnessed a separate breeding divide in the wild proves that they are different species. I for one feel that this argument will carry on for a long time...

After a quick raffle, we went home again to get the fish into their new aquaria. The traffic was terrible and I for one got back about an hour later than expected, but hey, if this is the price to pay for such a superb day, then I would gladly do it again.