I've been into fish for some time now, and finally took the jump to cichlids. Picked up a charming little guy at a good LFS a few days ago. He bit my finger a few times in the store, how could I resist? 
Anyways, the lady who netted him for us (she's pretty knowledgeable about fish) said he was a Pseudotropheus Tropheops, and the Cichlid book in the store had a picture that was right on. Except, when I look up that name here, or in my Baensch atlas, it says that's a "Golden Tropheops", and this guy is definately NOT golden! Are there different color phases, or is this just a bad ID?
Well, the fish is a kind of dark lavender/purple on the body with yellow edging on the dorsal and tail fins. His ventral fins also have a blue/white strpie running down the leading edge. He's around 3-4" long as well.
Oh, and he's a digger. and I mean digger. Tank I put him in is mostly planted, so there's a rather fine-grained, deep, light substrate and some nice rocks. Well, he's excavated through several inches of substrate in the middle of the tank down to the glass, and piled it all up along the front of the tank. He's completley undermined one rock which is now laying on its side in the middle of this crater, and the guys still going! He just sucks up one mouthful of gravel, swims off, spits it out by the glass, and goes back. I expected some re-arranging, but not quite this much. At least the fish is enjoying himself!
Well, enough ranting for now, any ideas what this fish is? He'll definately be getting a tank with more rocks shortly, but I'd like to know what really to give this little guy, and what kind of tank mates to look for?
Anyways, the lady who netted him for us (she's pretty knowledgeable about fish) said he was a Pseudotropheus Tropheops, and the Cichlid book in the store had a picture that was right on. Except, when I look up that name here, or in my Baensch atlas, it says that's a "Golden Tropheops", and this guy is definately NOT golden! Are there different color phases, or is this just a bad ID?
Well, the fish is a kind of dark lavender/purple on the body with yellow edging on the dorsal and tail fins. His ventral fins also have a blue/white strpie running down the leading edge. He's around 3-4" long as well.
Oh, and he's a digger. and I mean digger. Tank I put him in is mostly planted, so there's a rather fine-grained, deep, light substrate and some nice rocks. Well, he's excavated through several inches of substrate in the middle of the tank down to the glass, and piled it all up along the front of the tank. He's completley undermined one rock which is now laying on its side in the middle of this crater, and the guys still going! He just sucks up one mouthful of gravel, swims off, spits it out by the glass, and goes back. I expected some re-arranging, but not quite this much. At least the fish is enjoying himself!
Well, enough ranting for now, any ideas what this fish is? He'll definately be getting a tank with more rocks shortly, but I'd like to know what really to give this little guy, and what kind of tank mates to look for?
There certainly are a great deal of variants of that guy! He seems to fit the P. Tropheops Tropheops "Lilac Mambu"... 