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mikev · Joined: 19 Feb 2009 Posts: 2268 Location: NYC

I've been trying to be helpful to a person on another forum, who inherited a 45g tank with unidentified fish. Here is one for your judgment:

Not the best shot. Can this be M.australis? The fish is said to be 8cm.
(In the US I would have written this off as a Florida mix, but the owner and the fish are in Australia... I have no idea about the hybrid issues there).

Thanks.

Mark~N · Joined: 14 Mar 2009 Posts: 1120 Location: MA

could be the most common one you see in all the pet shops Mike but,looks to be more of a splendida inornata variety.Need a better pic

mikev · Joined: 19 Feb 2009 Posts: 2268 Location: NYC

Thanks, Mark, I'll ask.

Ken Boorman · Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 10:33 am Post subject:

Looks a bit more like a M.s. splendida to me. It will be interesting to see a better pic.

Ken
_________________
A.N.G.F.A. North American Coordinator

Colin_T · Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 10:48 am Post subject:

it does not look like M. splendida australis but does look like M. splendida splendida.
M. s. splendida come in a huge range of colour forms and unless they know which river system it came from, they might be better off keeping it as a possible hybrid and not breeding from it.

We do have some hybrids in Australia but most of them are New Guinea crosses (boesemani x incicus) that are sold in a few shops. Many of the purist fish keepers won't touch these fish and often avoid the shops that sell them.

mikev · Joined: 19 Feb 2009 Posts: 2268 Location: NYC

Don't know if this will help much, here are new shots from her:

taoyeah · Joined: 19 Feb 2009 Posts: 549 Location: New York

maybe splendida inornata ? there blue color at the caudal keel.

Colin_T · Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 12:01 pm Post subject:

going off the new pics I would say a young male M. splendida splendida or M. s. inornata.

mikev · Joined: 19 Feb 2009 Posts: 2268 Location: NYC

Well, this is how it went.

If she is serious about bows, she should come over here and ask for local sources... perhaps some of our members are in her area. But the ID given by the store makes me wonder : is M. eachamensis routinely sold by lfs in Australia or this is another G.wanamensis trepidation? Tappin seems to says that M. eachamensis no longer exists in Australia....

Colin_T · Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2010 11:05 am Post subject:

M. eachamensis was originally known from Lake Eacham but some yrs ago it was found that the surrounding rivers and streams had a genetically identical fish, but with slight differences in colouration. Prior to that M. eachamensis was considered extinct in the wild and very hard to get in captivity in Australia. However, a fish called the Dirran Creek rainbow was reasonably common and this is one of the colour forms of M. eachamensis.

To the best of my knowledge they are both still available in Australia but I haven't looked at a wholesale price list for over 12 months so they might not be available any more. But I think they should be.

The aquarium section in Taronga Park Zoo (in Sydney or Melbourne) had a huge pile of M. eachamensis and helped to breed them up for release in the wild, so I don’t think they will be gone forever. It might be a matter of tracking them down via ANGFA.

rainbowfish · Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2010 11:20 am Post subject:

It's not an eachamensis, period. They look nothing like this. If she really wants to learn about rainbowfish she should join the local ANGFA club. She just needs to look.

So Mikey, is that like a SpongeBob Squarepants Forum you were at? It kind of looked like it Smile

mikev · Joined: 19 Feb 2009 Posts: 2268 Location: NYC