We hear about difficulty recognizing between the 3 species supposedly in the hobby:
Semaprochilodus insignis, S. taeniurus, and
S. laticeps. Difficult to recognize in aquarium fish, since the characters are mainly about counts of scales and counts of rays on fins, not aquarium-possible characters.
We also hear about Red Tail, Yellow Tail, High Fin, Short Body, and other terms applied to “Flagtail Prochilodus” that may refer to anything from actual species, to varieties of single species; they may also partly refer to inter-specific variation due to provenance (actual geographic variation), but also to ontogeny (age and development of individual fish), and possibly varying conditions in aquaria.
In the pictures below there is a single fish, shown at various times over a 3-year span. I purchased it at ~ 2.5-3 inches in September 2017. He (she?) is about 10 inches today and very friendly. The first set of pictures are all around the same date, the adult pictures shown were taken sometime on 2019, and the last May 2020.
The main changes I can see include: 1) Spotting on body becoming much less with age, and the spots become proportionally smaller in larger fish; 2) Color of the dorsal fin changes dramatically, appearing less banded (and less attractive) in older fish; 3) Red coloration on caudal fin (tail) and anal fin becoming more intensely red with age. Tail on the young fish was more yellow than red, but the ventral pair of fins were red from the beginning.
Have you had your Flagtail for long? Have you noticed color or shape changes? Would you show pictures of your Flagtail of any type and color? Cheers!
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