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Melanotaenia Goldiei ..several Variations


Rainbowric
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Melanotaenia goldiei

Well I think it is time that I did a thread on M. goldiei. When ever you hear of the goldiei in the Rainbowfish circle it is usually quite a rare species. There has been quite a bit of confusion about this species over the years starting with the thought that it was just another species related to the trifasciata. Back then DNA was not available and there for it wasn't determined that it was a different species. Today there are a number of variations, different collections points of this species and there for it is quite important that the location point be added to it's name.

The original goldiei from "Laloki River" was almost extinct in the hobby. Today only 2 collectors in North America and only a few in Australia have fish from this collection.

A few years back a collection from "Loloipa River" was made and up until recently it was named incorrectly as "Lake Tapini". This collection was distributed in Alberta back in 2011 when Gary Lange came to Alberta and did presentations at both Calgary and Edmonton Spring workshops. Even though I picked up a group of this species, never got a good enough photo of it to present. Really through my searches the best photo I was able to find of it was a photo of a young fish taken by a collector in Germany ... Christophe Mailliet

Melanotaenia goldiei "Loloipia River"

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About the same time Heiko Bleher collected what is believed to be another variation of this species from the Aru Islands. Yes ... from the same collection that the Pseudomugil gertrudae Aru II came from. I believe it still has not been formally named and still goes by Melanotaenia "species" Aru II. I also had this variation in my collection for a couple of years and it is still quite available in Eastern Canada today. I was also able to get a few nice pictures of it.

Melanotaenia "species" Aru II

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Shortly after the collection that Heiko Bleher made at the Aru Islands, Gary Lange did a collection at a creek in Dekai. Yes just "Dekai" and it became quite popular in 2012. I never did have this fish in my collection. Photo courtesy of Gary Lange.

Melanotaenia goldiei " Dekai "

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Perhaps the most rarest of all goldiei, the original first as I indicated at the start of this thread is the one from "Laloki River". It is the most rarest fish of my collection. I raised this fish from an egg and it is now close to 1.5 years old. Still very prolific and when I raised up 60 of them there was not a sign of inbreeding. It came from Jeff Birch in London, Ontario along with other great fish like the G. wanamensis, M. boesemani "Lake Aytinjo" , DNA tested M. herbertaxelrodi, and M. lacustris from Heiko's first collection for which it is believed extinct.

Melanotaenia goldiei " Laloki River "

young at about 5 months ....

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at about 1 year old ....

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and today at about 1.5 years old ...

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It does take time for this fish to really show it's stuff ... maybe why many never collected it....

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Okay I know .... I didn't have the camera in focus ... but I thought it was still a great shot! :)

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You do see M. goldiei sometimes advertised as Goldie River ... goldiei.

Careful if you should buy this fish as none were labeled "Goldie River".

For more information about this species of fish as there is very little available you can go to Adrian Tappins website @ Home of the Rainbowfish

Hope you have enjoyed this article on the M. goldiei ....

Regards

Ric


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"Melanotaenia boesemani from Lake Aytinjo"

M_boes_Aytinjo_t.jpg

The Aytinjo variant does have stronger colours!

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Excellent article and amazing shots Rick!

Thanks Jay ... hope I got most of it correct. I am sure I will hear from Gary if not ! :)

Not much information available on this species out there and not many collectors have them. An awful lot of confusion as well. I was quite confused myself until Adrain made corrections to his web page just recently.

Cheers

Ric

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