Anything Caquetaia!

[lostnight]

I love those myersis, very cool shape and color pattern.

Not much exciting to report on the spectacilis aquarium. Not a whole lot of growth during the winter, but I cut back on water changes. Delivering mail in the winter zaps away a lot of my drive, energy and spirit, but now with the arrival of spring the water change frequency has picked up again, along with the return of lower back pains, lol.

No deaths to report, the inhabitants are still 6 Caquetaia spectabiles, 1 Paratilapia Polleni, and 1 orange xingu pike cichlid. No further additions. The polleni still rules the tank, but two of the spectabiles seem like they may be forming a pair bond. They hang out together and sometimes defend a corner against the polleni. No breeeding tubes yet or anything. If they end up breeding, I'll try to clear the other fish out. If I get a successful spawning, I may be willling to give away the 4 remaining spectabiles to anyone willing to pick them up or meet somewhere, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

 

[lostnight]

Man, it is strange. I did a google search on specs to see if there has been much new posted on them anywhere since November '07. No, very little at all, at least from what I find in the english speaking world. Makes planet earth seem so much smaller to me. So if I'm one of the few people in the world that speaks english, keeps specs, and posts stuff on the internet, I better get my act together and get fired up about this. So I'll try posting more pics and get more serious about trying to get them to breed. Here is a pic of the two that appear to have some sort of pair bond. I tried to get a pic of them defending their corner against the polleni, but my camera battery wouldn't hold out long enough.

Here is another spec that is one of the biggest and best looking of the group, but hasn't found a mate.

 

[Tongue33]

This is a truly beautiful thread!!!

 

[catfishlover106]

man this is a cool and useful sticky where i may just keep coming through for info on this group of Caquetaia =]

 

[kendog1]

phenomal work on the profiles, very interesting and usefull information, thanks everyone

 

[lostnight]

Cool, I'm glad people are enjoying this thread. Many thanks to Mourinho18 for starting it. It was a brilliant idea, we could use a whole lot of input, I'll try to do my part. I would love to have some umbees, but since I don't have any very huge aquariums the smaller caquetaia species fit the bill very well, and should be more popular.

Those two specs that have paired up might have bred, I'm not sure yet. The breeding tubes were partially down, but I have yet to see the female's tube go staight down in the typical perpundicular fashion. Maybe they're about to breed, or maybe they already did.

There is a large ceramic flower pot in the back left hand corner of the aquarium, the pair has been defending that corner against the other fish. Directly in front of the flower pot is a large plastic whitish colored artificial cave that extends almost to the front of the aquarium. One of the nonbreeding spectabiles has claimed the front part of this cave decoration. Sometimes he squares off against the breeding pair, but mostly it's all just bluff on both sides, no real nastyness going on.

The male of the breeding pair has been doing a lot of digging around the flower pot, mostly on the side that's toward the middle of the aquarium. He's dropped gravel everywhere, including on top of the cave decoration in front of the flower pot, which you can see in this picture. Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures, I'm having battery issues with the camera, so I have very few pics to pick from.

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Here is a side view of the aquarium, you should be able to get a good grasp on the layout of this end of the aquarium. If you look above the flower pot, you will see the intake tube of one of the Aquaclear 500s (there are 2). Below that intake tube is an area the male has been digging out. If I get fortunate enough to see free swimming fry, I will turn that filter off.

As you can see from the first pic, the inside of the flowerpot is quite dark. The female of the pair keeps swimming in there like she has a purpose. I tried using a flashlight to scope for eggs, but couldn't find a working flashlight. So I took a few pics with the flash on, results were still inconclusive, the flower pot opening view was obstructed by the cave decoration. I don't want to move things around and disturb them, so I'll justy keep my eye on things and see what happens.

 

[Jobe.Hannan@usmc.mil]

Hi, every one

 

[lostnight]

Hi Jobe.

I finally found a flashlight, from what I could see inside the flowerpot, there are no eggs or fry visible. They both still spend time in there, mostly the female, but the male joins her in there occasionally. They both still defend that area. The other specatbiles are claiming territories now, so there are more border skirmishes popping up. One of the larger specs appears to be courting the smallest one, she looks like she's thinking about it, but isn't convinced enough to make a commitment at this time. I want to give away the remaining specs if I get a pair that spawns successfully, but if I end up with multiple pairs that could complicate things a bit.

 

[lostnight]

Here is a quick pic of one of the ones not mating, I like the blues in the dorsal fin, so thought I'd post it before I go to bed.

oh, just noticed the date tag on the pic, disregard that, I just took it, I'm having camera issues, this is pic is only minutes old

 

[lostnight]

I finally got around to catching the stray little female festae in this tank, but I pretty much had to tear it apart to get her. I put the decorations in a little differently, so there were some border skirmishes this evening:

And I caught the backside of a yawn, maybe someday I'll capture a yawn at full extension.

I also sent email to the Newport Aquarium to see if they might be interested in my remaing spectabiles after I get a spawning pair. Newport Aquarium is in Newport, Kentucky, right across the river from Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati. They have a huge Amazonian tank that you walk through, plus a couple of smaller displays with South American Cichlids. I doubt they'll want them, but I won't get sent to prison for asking. So there is no downside, and a huge upside if they say yes. What a thrill it would be to see them there.