orange shoulder severum???
- Thread starter Loves severums
- Start date
Im bringing this back from the dead, Ive read lately that people are mixing these up with the rotkiels and Im getting more confused after doing this search. Some get bigger, ones more agro, can someone elaborate please? thanks.
They are the same fish, Heros sp. rotkeil. If in doubt, count the vertical bars -- all severums have 9 except for two: Heros sp. rotkeil and Heros sp. Inirida, which each have 8.
+1 Should be the same fish. But the handy thing about rotkeil is you have a simple way to cut through any question of rotkeil or not rotkeil if the fish in question has been mislabeled or given an ambiguous or fanciful name by a seller.
^ Until they've been crossed to greens, which is when things get muddy. 
A local dealer had some large pond-raised "rotkeil" once, they were enormous, like 8"+ fish and very thick. I was automatically suspicious because rotkeil are usually smaller than typical greens, but these did in fact have a red neck. They also had 9 bars. I'm pretty sure they were mutts because there were plain greens from the same batch. Unfortunately they were covered in the worst ich outbreak I've ever seen (it looked like someone had rolled them in white sand) and I don't know if they made it. The next time I went, they weren't there.
A local dealer had some large pond-raised "rotkeil" once, they were enormous, like 8"+ fish and very thick. I was automatically suspicious because rotkeil are usually smaller than typical greens, but these did in fact have a red neck. They also had 9 bars. I'm pretty sure they were mutts because there were plain greens from the same batch. Unfortunately they were covered in the worst ich outbreak I've ever seen (it looked like someone had rolled them in white sand) and I don't know if they made it. The next time I went, they weren't there.
Doesn't surprise me about the mutts... seems inevitable some rotkeils will enter the somewhat muddy gene pool of domestic greens, doesn't it?
^ Unfortunately, yes. A lot of people keep the rotkeils in mixed company with other severums and they'll all gladly interbreed. I have never actually raised any rotkeil x green fry so I don't know how the traits express in F1 fry, or what would happen if you then crossed those fry. I've had notatus breed with greens here but I always cull those fry. I don't like the idea of mutts getting out.