Help me ID this guy

[mcybyk]

I picked him up from my lfs, who had just gotten a bunch of these guys in. He did not have a lot of info, other than calling them a high reef afra. After looking on cichlid-forum.com, I'm guessing that he may be a cynotilapia afra (chinuni). Can someone confirm what he may be? Thanks.

[ibr3ak]

C. afra, looks like a Likoma strain, when it flairs its fins is the dorsal fin yellow?

[ibr3ak]

This is mine:

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh74/ibr3ak/100_0653.jpg

[mcybyk]

C. afra, looks like a Likoma strain, when it flairs its fins is the dorsal fin yellow?

His dorsal is yellow, but he does not appear as blue as yours. That's why I thought he might be the chinuni strain, which appears a little less blue but still has the yellow dorsal. Your Likoma has the same blue coloring as my pseudo. elongotus, while this guy shows more blue/purple coloring.

[ibr3ak]

Mine changes color all the time, one minute he's so light the color is almost white with dark blue stripes, the next his entire body is really dark blue/purple, where you can barely even see the stripes.

Only reason I think yours is not a chinuni is because chinunis have only a white stripe along their dorsal and no yellow.

[mcybyk]

Thanks for the info. I'm guessing that the difference is in the coloring of the dorsal. I'll keep that in mind next time around.

BTW - your's has great coloring and nasty little teeth. How aggressive is yours?

[ibr3ak]

I bought him when my tank was already established, so I went into it thinking it'll get the most of the aggression from other fish, but to my surprise after a few days of settling it became the dominant one in the tank, now the dominance is shared between it and a few other bigger fish (dominant fish changes from week to week :) ), but I haven't seen any serious crazy aggression just the regular chasing and stuff like that.