At what size does the Nicaragua Cichlid start to color up?

[phreeflow]

To be honest, if I knew I had to wait for these fish to get that big before they color up without getting the guranteed sex I want, I would have had second thoughts before I bought mines.

Understood but they’re definitely worth the wait. Both sexes look amazing but the females are outstanding

 

[Hybridfish7]

They looks nice, are they a different variety?

Different variety than the ones we have in the hobby, or different between the two pics? Second pic is the adult of the first as I'm sure you've deduced, but just wanted to make sure...

As for the ones we have in the hobby, there's a lot of the Costa Rican ones floating around, as they're the more colorful of the bunch, so yours will probably look like that to some degree. Your males at least. I was surprised to catch the little one with the big dot but apparently some are just like that, and end up like the big one anyway. The lake population ones tend to be more yellow.

Female from Max:


The sarapiqui, where I caught the those two, eventually drains into the san juan (which is where Max Savchuk collected his), and itself drains into lake nicaragua. In asking Jeff Rapps about the potential for there to be more than one species, he said there isn't really THAT much of a difference, and that essentially it wouldn't be worth the hassle of looking into it any further.

While I do advocate for biodiversity in nomenclature and such, and I do believe there's a bit of distinction in behavior and morphology between populations, they are admittedly, as mentioned before, all connected by the same river drainage. If there's any precedent for the potential for speciation, just based on the amphilophus explosion in this particular lake, the best bet for another Hypsophrys sp in my opinion would be lake xiloa, as that's the only place they've been observed babysitting dovii fry. Just opinion till we see molecular data though.

 

[CichlidMan64]

Different variety than the ones we have in the hobby, or different between the two pics? Second pic is the adult of the first as I'm sure you've deduced, but just wanted to make sure...

As for the ones we have in the hobby, there's a lot of the Costa Rican ones floating around, as they're the more colorful of the bunch, so yours will probably look like that to some degree. Your males at least. I was surprised to catch the little one with the big dot but apparently some are just like that, and end up like the big one anyway. The lake population ones tend to be more yellow.

Female from Max:
View attachment 1546187

The sarapiqui, where I caught the those two, eventually drains into the san juan (which is where Max Savchuk collected his), and itself drains into lake nicaragua. In asking Jeff Rapps about the potential for there to be more than one species, he said there isn't really THAT much of a difference, and that essentially it wouldn't be worth the hassle of looking into it any further.

While I do advocate for biodiversity in nomenclature and such, and I do believe there's a bit of distinction in behavior and morphology between populations, they are admittedly, as mentioned before, all connected by the same river drainage. If there's any precedent for the potential for speciation, just based on the amphilophus explosion in this particular lake, the best bet for another Hypsophrys sp in my opinion would be lake xiloa, as that's the only place they've been observed babysitting dovii fry. Just opinion till we see molecular data though.

View attachment 1546188

Yes I meant in the hobby, As you mentioned I noticed some are more yellowish, and some where both the male and female have blue coloring on their face, while some had the male looking almost completely drab at full adult size. Also, the one you got looks very nice btw!

 

[Hybridfish7]

Yes I meant in the hobby, As you mentioned I noticed some are more yellowish, and some where both the male and female have blue coloring on their face, while some had the male looking almost completely drab at full adult size. Also, the one you got looks very nice btw!

Unfortunately not mine... yet... Still waiting for someone to desperately need to get rid of a 125. But best of luck with yours, I'm sure they'll turn out nice. Not many people breed the yellow ones anymore from what I've seen, so that brings your odds up a bit lol

 

[mrrobxc]

Mine are around 3-4” for the female, and about 3/4” larger for the males. They colored up at 3”

View attachment IMG_2250.jpeg

View attachment IMG_2252.jpeg

View attachment IMG_2251.jpeg

 

[mrrobxc]

Not showing. Here’s a second tryView attachment IMG_2251.jpegView attachment IMG_2250.jpegView attachment IMG_2252.jpeg

 

[Hybridfish7]

Not showing. Here’s a second tryView attachment 1546380View attachment 1546381View attachment 1546382

worked the first time for me, very nice fish

 

[Lyrar2000]

2-3 inches I guess. their colors become more pronounced and vivid, with mature individuals displaying a striking combination of blues, greens, yellows, and reds.