Pike cichlid at Fish Story
- Thread starter thebiggerthebetter
- Start date
The adult Atabapo refuses prepared feed but is hungry enough to go after tank mates, so has to go into 1800 gal:
Mine is supposed to be strigata... Looks almost identical
Helpful exchange on YT:
andyaquatics Looks like a female Venezuelan pike cichlid. I have a big female myself.
Fish-Story Don't the females have to show a thin white stripe at the very tips of the dorsal & adipose rays?
andyaquatics in my experience with the Venezuelan pikes they don’t really get white on the dorsal or adipose rays. In the atabapo and Xingu 1 pikes they tend to have white on the dorsal. But I’ve seen it in both males and females. I’m my experience with pike cichlids all the females I’ve had get the red/pink bellies and tend to be more colorful overall than a male. When I had zebrina pikes the female got a pink belly, males stayed yellow. When I had Crenicichla Xingu 1, the females got pink bellies with white on the dorsal. Males stayed like a peach orange ish green. With my Crenicichla (dandara) Xingu ll male was black and female was black with a pink middle. Then the big Venezuelan I got recently is colored like yours which leads me to believe mine and yours are female. Also by how thick the belly is. I find female Crenicichla to get a lot heavier bodied than the males. I’m no expert, just observations I have made over the years.
Fish-Story Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and experience. I am a total novice with pike cichlids, so I trust the word of peers experienced with them. Would you mind if I reposted your input in our pike cichlid thread on the MFK? That way it will get stored and be easier found for me when I need to reread it.
andyaquatics feel free to use whatever you’d like!
andyaquatics Looks like a female Venezuelan pike cichlid. I have a big female myself.
Fish-Story Don't the females have to show a thin white stripe at the very tips of the dorsal & adipose rays?
andyaquatics in my experience with the Venezuelan pikes they don’t really get white on the dorsal or adipose rays. In the atabapo and Xingu 1 pikes they tend to have white on the dorsal. But I’ve seen it in both males and females. I’m my experience with pike cichlids all the females I’ve had get the red/pink bellies and tend to be more colorful overall than a male. When I had zebrina pikes the female got a pink belly, males stayed yellow. When I had Crenicichla Xingu 1, the females got pink bellies with white on the dorsal. Males stayed like a peach orange ish green. With my Crenicichla (dandara) Xingu ll male was black and female was black with a pink middle. Then the big Venezuelan I got recently is colored like yours which leads me to believe mine and yours are female. Also by how thick the belly is. I find female Crenicichla to get a lot heavier bodied than the males. I’m no expert, just observations I have made over the years.
Fish-Story Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and experience. I am a total novice with pike cichlids, so I trust the word of peers experienced with them. Would you mind if I reposted your input in our pike cichlid thread on the MFK? That way it will get stored and be easier found for me when I need to reread it.
andyaquatics feel free to use whatever you’d like!
