red zebra

[TankBoss]

I find iding my zebra cichlids very confusing. I bought a tank with a mating pair and fry. The fry is about 12 fish ranging in sizes around 3" and down. One of the adults is very Orange with vertical dark stripes and the other is dark colored with vertical stripes (color has blues in it but very plain almost brown even) not sure which is the male and which is female.
Some of the fry have black on their fins (unlike any of the red zebra pics I see online) and none of them are the dark type of Orange of the online zebra pics I see.
I'm wondering if they are just some hybrid zebra or one different than a red. Anyone?

 

[TankBoss]

pics

 

[WendiDell]

The fish on the right with the stripes looks like a male Kenyi.
The dark one on the bottom? Not a clue, sorry.
But the rest look like Red Zebras. When a Red Zebra is stressed or not eating well they can get to be fairly pale. When they relax and are eating well, their color should deepen. Not all of the Reds are a dark orange. And some of yours still look quite young. Give them a little more time.
The more I look at the guy on the right the more he looks like a Kenyi.
There may be others that know more than I do, but it's difficult to get an ID. So many of the Mbunas are hybrids you can't always find out.
I have a muddy gray Cichlid that I put up to be ID'd, I got 2 responses. It's to hard to tell unless you only have one kind of fish in your tank.
Like all Red Zebras, or all Cobalt Blue Zebras. But these guys aren't picky, so we booth most likely have a couple hybrids.
I hope you have better luck than I did.

 

[TankBoss]

Thanks a lot for trying. One of those adults have to be a parent and the only other possible mate is what looks like a cobalt zebra.
As for the "stressed and not eating well" possibility... not these things. They eat like monsters and tend to be the most active fish I have... fighting amongst themselves and swimming actively.
I'm sure you are right about them being hybrids .

 

[redfisher1139]

I have to agree with Wendi on the one looking like a male Kenyi. That pic is a spitting image of my male.

 

[TankBoss]

I have to agree with Wendi on the one looking like a male Kenyi. That pic is a spitting image of my male.

Speaking of the dark one, right?

 

[redfisher1139]

No, the yellow one. Here is my male Kenyi:



He is not quite full adult yet, thus the tinges of blue, but that goes away with adulthood.

 

[Spurdy]

I just bought three juvenile kenyis that were sold as female. One of them is now changing colors so I know he is male and he looks just like the yellow striped one. The first pic def looks like my red zebras but the dark one is a mystery to me. But I am new to this so that doesn't surprise me.

 

[TankBoss]

Thank you all for your input... now I am even more confused lol. I have no idea how I ended up with a fry of Red Zebras if I have no adult Zebras. I did lose a mature Orange Blotch Zebra in the move but then which is the other possible parent? Oh well... I will continue to call them Zebra hybrids.

 

[carey]

Do you have any mbuna in there? I know one of my female mbuna johanni is orange like the zebras but she's only a baby....

 

[mfdrookie516]

Do you have any mbuna in there? I know one of my female mbuna johanni is orange like the zebras but she's only a baby....

All of those fish in the tank are mbuna... at least the ones pictured. Mbuna, haps, and peacocks are the 3 types of cichlids found in lake malawi.



Give me a little while. I've seen that fish before. I just CANNOT think of the name right now. I'm off to cichlid-forum.com to look through their profiles section again...

 

[carey]

I still kinda new to this...are red zebra's mbuna? I thought they were haps...please let me know as I have 2 red zebras and a zebra ob that might be close to maturity.....

 

[mfdrookie516]

Yea, red zebras are mbuna.

 

[carey]

And here I was going along with the wrong info. Well that evens out my mbuna/hap ratio a bit

 

[TankBoss]

Do you have any mbuna in there? I know one of my female mbuna johanni is orange like the zebras but she's only a baby....

All except for 3 of my 25 fish are Mbuna.... Definitely not Johanni.

 

[TankBoss]

All except for 3 of my 25 fish are Mbuna.... Definitely not Johanni.

I do have a few haps as well
Electric blue hap
Blue Dolphin
Some other thing I haven't ID'd