Albertan

Well the fish certainly has a yellow base color which makes me think female also. The black line is more or less continuous and I don't see any small spots above or below the line either. It's that spangling on the face that throws me, but then I think all of the group have it to one degree or another depending on their dominance. Upon further review, I conclude with confidence that it is a female. :thumbs: I'll try to get a picture of my dominant male who is about the same size. His fins are seriously the "blue/green"-est I have ever seen on a dovii his size, and he has a similarly colored mask on his face. If fact, I don't think he even has much of the spangling anymore. The second dominant male is a specimen as well. I have to do a double take when I look in the constantly-unlit tank thinking he is the top dog. Until the dominant fish cruises into view...

A nice short read with some good information. Thanks Theo. :thumbs:

Cool. I'd like to see a side shot if possible. I'm personally not 100% sure that's a female looking at those pics...there appear to be some traits of both sexes. Good looking fish either way!

There are two "Palmas Bichirs" for sale at the Grande Prairie Petland at the moment...$120 each. :boxed:

Top notch examples of the species as always. :thumbs:

The only thing I can see as a "dither" is another cichlid big enough to get outta the dovii's way but not big enough to dominate the tank. Maybe I'll dump a few convicts in. Sue the male is free. Once I get some lights on and some pictures taken, I'll send them down to you. I'll have to figure out when to get him out, as it took me forever to get the one you have outta the 150. But at any rate consider him yours and I'll try to get him to you by the end of the month. If you could, please send me a pic of yours. I'd like to see what it looks like now.

Thanks for fixing it. Now I can sleep tonight. :thumbs:

I am listed as a member of the Grande Praire group. Could someone please change this to Grande Prairie? Thanks.

Very nice pictures and beautiful tanks.

Lol. It figures I gave away the only female. Actually I am not sure I want a breeding pair now anyways. I do have a very nice male, second in the tank's pecking order. I would be happy to bring him to Edmonton sometime. I'm not looking for ward to culling these fish which is what I expect it to come down to in the end.

That's what I was thinking when I read that. But I bet a parrot would yield the most messed up shape. Also, it would be interesting to find out if the color-determining gene is sex-linked (carried on the Y chromosome). I think that site stipulates using a male carpintis just because some of the hybrid males are sterile.

As I mentioned in PMs Darcy they are a hybrid like the flowerhorn, and are often sold as such. Being a type of flowerhorn developed by Asian breeders you can expect they same type of trade secrecy associated with flowerhorns. You may want to dig around here. They may have some additional information.

The dovii aren't much for chasing. They ambush them at sunrise. I slept next to the tank one night after adding the tin foils and was awoken by the dominant male smoking the glass tops.

Beautiful fish. I don't recall from previous threads elsewhere how many of these were collected. Have you established a breeding pair yet? I think you know where this is going... :hey:

Yeah I tried Columbian tetras and then tin foil barbs. Both became feeders in short order as mentioned. I think I'm just gonna have to wait it out and let them put on another inch or two. Just a minor inconvenience on the path to owning a monster I guess.

I posted this on MFK originally, but since we have a few really experienced cichlid-keepers here I figured I'd post my concerns here as well. Sorry for the long post. I know this sounds like a contradiction in terms...shy and dovii. But that's exactly what I have, and I am not sure if I am dealing with it correctly. I know that young dovii can be notoriously reclusive, likely to get them through their early days in the wild amongst a lot of piscivorous parents. But I haven't read of any shy to the degree mine are so I thoought I'd seek out some opinions. These fish were obtained by a local LFS from Jeff Rapp's. They arrived at the LFS last November at 1.5". I picked four of these fish up in late January, still at 1.5-2", and began growing them out in a 150 with six freddies. The freddies were much more outgoing and fed more aggressively, so I didn't think the dovii were getting enough food as the freddies were growing considerably faster. I decided to move the dovii to their own 120 to grow out. The second largest was given to a friend and I later replaced it with the last one at the LFS as I didn't think I had a female amongst the three I had (still don't ). The 120 was only sparsely decorated, so the dominant fish chased the others around and guarded the sole piece of bogwood as his territiory. By this time the largest fish had to be 4" or so...I don't want to give the impression these fish aren't growing. I decided to plant the tank artificially more as a biotope and added more bogwood. I also added a larger (6") female carpintis to shake things up a bit and give the other dovii a chance to come out of hiding. The carpintis was the dominant fish and things seemed to be ok. The carpintis tolerated everyone well except for the largest dovii, which began skulking behind some plants, only coming out to feed. The dominant dovii is to be my showpiece fish, so I try to make decisions based on what is best for him. I decided to rearrange the tank again (this occured over a period of months not days) and take the carpintis out. Ever since I took the carpintis out and changed the aquascaping, the dovii are not to be seen. For 10 days I literally could not see a trace of any of four dovii ranging in size from 3-5+"...nothing. One night before bed after turning the lights out on the tank I saw them all out feeding. I realized that they will not come out if the lights are on. So I am left with a dilemma. I can leave the lights on and never see the fish. Or I can leave the lights off and rely on the ambient light in the room to let me see shadows of my prized fish. I really enjoyed watching these fish, and even in the shadows I can see simply amazing blue finnage developing on the dominant fish. I tried some dithers, but they took 8 Columbians down to 5 in one night and 6 tin foils down to 3 in the same time span. If anyone can relate how their dovii behaved as juvies, I would like to get an idea if this is just at the far end of normal or if I should be making some changes. The tank looks great, but if I'd be better off with fewer decorations to actually get the fish to come out of their shell I have no problem with that either. Water parameters are fine BTW. I do 60% WCs every 7-10 days. I'm running an FX-5, XP3, and AC110 on the tank. The only other fish are a male BN pleco and a rhino pleco. Both are about 3" currently. Thanks in advance for any feedback. Sorry for the long post.

Ah, I never considered that. Good point. I should have remembered that since that very factor prevented me from picking up the TSN you had in with the PBass. You guys had some albino senegals too as I recall. Albinos aren't my cup of tea, but they may interest this poster.

No problem. I meant to ask you who Christian was when you were getting my fish for me but then I forgot trying to take a final look at the different plecos. I didn't remember until I was at the front and another fellow pointed you out, but you were busy so I figured I would introduce myself another time. Gotta like any fishkeeper that rounds up your plecos with his bare hands. hehe. Thanks again Christian. I am just floating them in the bags atm and trying to figure out who gets to share space with who.

Check out the Central American Cichlid forum at cichlidforum.com. They post about breeding convicts over and over and over.....

In a shameless plug for Christian's place of employment, I will point out that they have some beautiful ornate bichirs in stock right now if you decide to go the Polypterus route. There is a little picture guide to the different bichirs along with a species description you might find helpful at monsterfishkeepers.com.

Riverfront hands down, although Gold's is a good bet also. Christian just sent me home with an L018 Gold Nugget Pleco and an L091 Three Beacon Pleco they had named something else. I shoulda picked up an L007 Vampire Pleco, but $300+ for three little plecos is pretty hard to justify to the wife. One other spot I would visit actually are the Petlands in the area. Sunridge, a little north of Gold's seems to get a lot of the interesting stuff. You're gonna have enough fun to justify the rounds with the first two on the list though.

My wife and I had the exact same conversation in the parking lot at Riverfront today. It's going to have the same outcome too.

Hehe. Been looking for jags for months believe it or not. Just saw them today at Riverfront...three for $8.99. Think I'll pick them up after seeing these pics. Very nice indeed. :thumbs:

Always a treat to see AquaMojo's pictures. So much the better if we don't have to venture too far from home to do it. :thumbs: That carpintis is exactly what I would envision my Rapp's fish looking like at that size. Quite a flattened snout compared to others I have seen. Let us know if you get a definitive ID on it. Oh and welcome to AA. :welcome:

Did anyone here wind up picking this fish up?