Are these fish wild-type orange chromides or are they Greens?

brackishdude

brackishdude

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A LFS in VA beach has a tank full of chromides. Only one is the red or orange (I bought it). The rest are being sold as Green Chromides, they are rather plain looking fish with red speckles and a single or multiple black splotches along their length. But they resemble the pics below, which call them orange chromide:

midway down http://www.ornamentalfishes.org/html/family.htm

http://www.popular-freshwater-tropical-fish.com/fish/etroplus_maculatus.htm


This site describes a similiar encounter in a LFS, and the consensus was that these are in fact the wild-type morphs
http://www.pricenetwork.ca/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14240


This site attempts to differentiate bewen the orange, red, and green, with pics http://www.thegoldfishbowl.co.uk/atlas.cgi?a=Tropical&f=Cichlidae

and here the green is clearly striped

http://www.aquamojo.com/chromide.html

but here it's spotted and most closely resembles the ones in my LFS (near bottom on left)

http://basic1.easily.co.uk/01501B/058023/picture.html


I think these are some attractive fish, particularly some of the specimens in the tank that had an orangish hue to the whole body. But I have decided that I don't want any aggressive fish over about 3-4 incehs when fully grown, and the green get quite a bit bigger than that. They also have a reputation for being bullies.

The fish are only $4.99 each, but I need some input as to what kind of fish they are. . .

li'l help?
 
brackishdude - what is the store's name? it is animal jungle? last time I was there, all they had was a tank full of green chromides and one orange.
 
brackishdude - well, I did a bit of research, but am by no means satisfied. what I have come up with is this: there are three types of chromides. Etroplus maculatus (commonly known as the orange or red chromide, Etroplus suratenis (also known as the green chromide), and the Etroplus canarensis (also known as the banded chromide). it is this third type that I am assuming is the true wild chromide, as it's distribution is extremely limited.

http://cichlid-forum.com/profiles/

go to this link. click the pull down menu and select other cichlids. then go to the second pull down menu and select asian cichlids. there it will give you a species profile on each of these fish.
 
brackishdude - here are some links to some other pic of the surantenis (green) and the canarensis (banded, or wild). maybe they get the bars as they get older? just a guess. but a big size difference between the two. the green supposedly gets upwards of 14" and banded only about 5". as for temperment...I have also heard that the green can be a bully, but have also heard of them being housed with the orange just fine, as long as they did not have a spawn.

http://www.tangledupincichlids.com/images/canar5.jpg

http://www.tangledupincichlids.com/images/suratensis1.jpg

hope I have helped some. :) where in va do you live, if you don't mind?
 
Here is what I knew when I started:

There are (at least) three species of chromide

Etroplus maculatus (orange chromide):there is a wild-type morphology, but there is also an aquarium-derived red mutant that is the more commonly available variant. Max size (of both phenotypes) is ~3", very peaceable.

Etroplus suratenis (green chromide), which I've always thought had stripes, but gets >6" and may be a bit unruly.

Etroplus canarensis (banded chromide) Rarely available in the hobby.


What I wanted to get was the wild-type maculatus (NOT the specialy bred orange type), but what looked to me to be them was labled "green chromides", despite a lack of stripes. thus my question


For anyone who is interested, I got in touch with Vin Kutty, something of an expert ont he subject, and here are the emails we then exchanged:



I see why you are a bit confused. There are all kinds of names running around for the same fish!

Etroplus maculatus is the small fish. In the wild, they have a spot (maculatus is latin for spot) and are greenish when not spawning and bright yellow when spawning. The ornamentalfishes.org site has a picture of a female in broodcare coloration - bright yellow with a spot or two on the side. Males dont get the whitish edges on their tails. There is an aquarium strain that is orangish and I guess often sold as Red Chromides - these dont have the spot on the side. Regardless they are all E. maculatus.

Etroplus suratensis is the big fish. It gets 6-8 inches in aquaria and almost a foot long in the wild. They are striped. Often called Green Chromides or PearlSpot or Striped pearlspot. This is a great fish that you should not shy away from. They are vegetarian. Both species are found in brackish water but also in very soft, acidic water. They are not strictly brackish.

Good luck.
Vin


>>Vin,
>>
>>thanks for your reply. Not to belabor the point, but I want to be
>>sure if I buy these fish that they won't be out of scale in a few
>>months/years: The fish 6th from the bottom ont he left on this
>>page, which most closely resembles the fish in the fish store, is
>>NOT a green chromide? Although the fish I may buy don't have the
>>hint of stripes that the one in this picture has, the resemblance
>>is uncanny.
>>
>>http://basic1.easily.co.uk/01501B/058023/picture.html
>>
>>True or false: all green chromides have stripes.
>>
>>
>>Thanks again for your patience.





>The "Green Chromide" on this link is NOT a green chromide. It is E. maculatus.

>Yes, all Green Chromides ( E. suratensis) have stripes.
 
brackishdude - very interesting. you definately knew more when you started then what I know now.
 
I this picture of my 90 gal I have both (1) Orange Chromide and (2) Green Chromides. The two Green Chromides are swimming together. Green Chomides will grow to 12"-14" long.
The Orange Chromide shown is the natural phase.
image01.jpg
 
I would be careful trusting the first source you had listed that called them Orange chromides. I was just scrolling down through the list of fish and found two very obvious errors. First they had a spike-tailed paradise fish listed as the scientific name Macropodus cupanus, which is wrong. The real scientific name for them is Psuedophromenus dayi or cupanus. Next they had paradise fish, mind you the picture was of the same kind of fish as listed for the spike-tail, obviously not a paradise fish. The scientific name they listed for them was Macropoduas cupanus dayi, another error. True paradise fish look totally different and have a scientific name of Macropodus opercularis. So just be careful using that source, personally I would look for others.
 
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