whats my pudgy? -- fish ID

[lordofworms]

Hello all ..I am so fortunate I found this forum. I have read bookloads of useful info in my obessessi...err..aquarium hobby here. I do have a question though, my second only post so forgive me if this is the wrong place to ask a question like this.

[Backstory]
Awhile back I bought some Kuli-loaches for my 25 gallon after choosing the only sad two left in the tank I drove home and took them out of their bags and noticed a small tiny fish among them. I called the LFS and they just said."our loss, when I asked what it could be they said a pygmy corycat.
well I took the care to acclimate him and so on and he became a loved member of my community tank and has grown to a bigger size (still tetra like small) and I can tell you from what I read and what I have looked up here and everywhere else...he is no corycat.. His personality is boundless but I dont know how to take care of him(her) because I cannot identify her at all.

I took some pics, bad I know (camera phone) but could anyone maybe make out its features well enough to provide me with something to go on...I am thinking of the chichlid family because of the almost human like mouth and facial features..listen to me i sound crazy...the aggresive nature when it come to defending his little corner castle
anyways I just want to give the guy the best home he can have even if that means taking him from my community (blue gourami, angelfish, few neon tetras ,pudgy, and the 2 kuli loaches) and providing his own habitat (also is he schooling? yikes...):
He 'seems' quite happy and defends his own little section and everyone else seems to know well enough to stay away and there is plenty of space.
but?
help someone?

p.s. Love the forum !

 

[ampa one]

welcome to AA it's a cichild .

 

[lordofworms]

how come I have a hard time finding his exact name? I do a search for cichild and I just get a bloom of colorful, exotic looking fish. I do thank you for clarifying that for me though! would reading up about any generic cichild help me with finding or maintaining a suitable habitat?

 

[JustOneMore20]

Welcome to AA!

You do indeed have a Cichlid and more specifically I believe you may have an Auratus or Melanochromis auratus which unfortunately isn't a fish that mixes well with your others. You may not have any issues now, but you could in the future as he gets more mature. They live in rocks and while they don't school, usually people keep them in groups with more females than males. And because they can get really aggressive, its best to keep them in a large tank (75g +) so that they have a large territory.

Look at the pics and make sure your Pudgy is indeed an auratus. I'm certain he is a Cichlid from Lake Malawi in Africa and I'm pretty certain about the auratus ID. If his colors are different, what colors does he have on him?

 

[mfdrookie516]

It definitely looks like a female auratus... only other thing similar that could be misidentified would be a julidochromis, but their body shape is a bit different. definitely NOT a community fish, even hard to keep with fish of its kind because of aggression... if you put it in a different tank, you'll be ok if you give it a couple other females and a male with it

 

[dkpate]

I think he/she's ADORABLE! (Just my two cents LOL)

 

[lordofworms]

colors are a tanish yellow with 3 dark brown stripes running down, a sort of faint light purplish bluish sheen around her two front fins. and believe me when i tell you, no sooner had you all identified her for me then she started showing her true colors...
in just 24 hours she seems to have 'matured' and taken the entire tank as her own cowering my poor other fishies into a corner, I witnessed her last night chomping at my angelfish and gourami!!

I liked her better when she had a personality disorder and thought she was a corycat..lol
anyways, I feel bad about taking her out but discussing it with my girlfriend we feel that we would just have to go ahead and get that 55 gallon tank we have been kind of on the fence with...(after cycled) (i secretly smiled to myself knowing I am not at all upset about that idea!!!! yay a new tank!!)move all my current fish to this new setup and pudgy can have the 25 gallon all to herself?
or is that still too small for this species?

if so I hate doing it but i would bring her back to the LFS, but I guarantee someone else would get her without knowing her temperment! or her genus!! just like me.

I dont want to give her up for adoption but i dont know much about these chiclids...i avoided them at this early stage in my hobby because of the difficulty in their aggression,habitat,etc...now that I am reading all I can about her...words like 'Beware", "Highly aggressive", "Killed my other fish", etc...keep coming up..lol
but looks like fate gave me one regardless.
so would 25 be enough for her and only her? or do I dare give her back to the LFS and 'hope' she isn't just thrown in with the corycats again?

 

[mfdrookie516]

any way you could get a bigger tank? I wouldnt normally recommend this, but even a 40g would work, and you could get a couple more females and a male and have a nice little group of fish. if you cant get a bigger tank, i would suggest you either try to rehome her via craigslist or see if the lfs will take her back in exchange for other fish. I've got one lone female in my 150g, im planning on getting a few more in the coming weeks. Theyre very interesting fish if you know what you're getting in to before purchasing and have the correct decor set up. With these guys, you have to have lots of rock for them to hide in and feel safe, and a 25g tank is just too small

 

[lordofworms]

i could opt to keep my community fish in the 25 gallon and reserve the newer 55 gallon for 'pudgy' if you think 55 is ok? but I do NOT want to sublimate her/his quality of life simply because i wasnt prepared to handle her. Now I do love this fish very much, all gripes aside (and fear for my other fish) this IS the fish i most often watch for hours simply because of its personality. but I really dont have the $ or the room for anything larger than a 55 for at least a 2-3 year stretch so I wouldnt want to keep her if i would HAVE to upgrade before that time.

 

[mfdrookie516]

a 55g would be great! You could have 8-10 more fish that are compatable with it... "pudgy" looks to be either a female or a juvenile male, but depending on how big it is, id say female... You'll need lots of rocks for her to hide in... if you need any ideas to set up a tank suitable for her, take a look at my tank in my album on my profile as well as several other members on here (aquarium1, sonomakid, sicklid, and i cant think of any others right off hand)...

 

[JustOneMore20]

A 75g isn't that much bigger...just wider...and shouldn't cost too much more new than a 55g. That would be a better size IMO for a Cichlid tank. And you could definitely get Pudgy more friends! 75g works better for rockwork too IMO....I had a 55g Cichlid tank and I always wished it was wider.

 

[lordofworms]

I was at the lfs yesterday and I did price the diff between 55-75 gallons.
there wasnt much of a diff at all. in fact I ended up shooting both of them out and grabbing myself a nice 120 gallon 48 x 24 x 25. the size seemed perfect for my dining room (where I will be placing this tank) away from any heaters/windows.

now since i have several weeks to cycle (I have seeded substrate/a few rocks from my 25 that I can use that should help as well(seed wise)

so now your all saying even with a 55 I could have had some friends for pudgy? whats the bio-load I could have with the 120? and really for all you chichild experts.
Pudgy is def. a aurutus by searching online and reading, yep...and she is a female , i believe sub-adult as she is just under an inch now in size...so my question?
what are some tank buddies I could look into, since i obviously have a time to wait for the cycling (pudgy is currently in a 15 gallon QT that has been cycled so she is safe for the next few weeks while I wait for the 120 to be good.) but the more I have to read and such the better.

so more simply.

how many fish aside from pudgy in a 120?
what fish would YOU choose if you were in my predicament?

i ask because if I just bought a 120 gallon for this one fish...lol...well my girl will def. think i have lost my mind with this fish 'hobby'...

 

[JustOneMore20]

120g will give you many options. I would definitely stick with African Cichlids from Lake Malawi (Mbunas specifically) which is where Pudgy is from. I would try to stick with some that are similar in aggression, so you don't have any killing sprees (hopefully).

Some good ones to look at that are pretty common are Red Zebras, Socolofi, Cynotilapia afra 'cobue', Greshakei/Ice Blue Zebras, Acei and Kenyi. And those are some that are pretty common. Yellow Labs are super common, but they are usually (not always) one of the less aggressive ones. I personally wouldn't keep them with the Auratus, but if you didn't have much to choose from at the lfs, I think it could work, just have more of the Labs than the others. There are more, but that is a good start.

A good rule of thumb (or 2) is not to put 2 species in from the same genus....usually they look too similar and may interbreed. Also you really don't want to put in 2 species that look similar (even from different genus) because of interbreeding (like Kenyi and Red Zebras since the male Kenyi look like Red Zebras). Hybrids aren't terrible if you want to keep them yourself, but its not good to sell them/give them away IMO.

In a 120g, I'd probably pick 4-5 types and have 4-5 of each. If you pick one that gets on the larger side (like Acei) you might stick to the lower numbers.

What I would stock with would be 4 Auratus, 5 Red Zebras, 5 C. afra cobue, and 5 Greshakei/Ice Blues. Makes for a colorful, but not too crowded tank IMO.

 

[dkpate]

WOW! Congrats on your new tank! Isn't it crazy that you will get a whole GIANT tank because of one fish? (I did too..lol)

 

[mfdrookie516]

Yay! Cant wait to see your progress... To add to Kristins suggestions, Bumblebees, cherry red zebras, and hongi would be some other good options... of course there are TONS of possibilities!

 

[sliderfish]

Pudgy looks like he may be a melanochromis chipokae which may not be a great social fish once he gets bigger. They are quite aggressive and large males will kill off other species or in some cases its own species over time. Reminds me of when I found a cute pitbull puppy; cute, but soon it showed that it wasn't going to work out for me and my other dogs.

The easiest was to tell apart auratus from chipokae is half of the auratus' tail is yellow, they have a round snout for grazing algae. Chipokaes have a fully patterned tail and an elongated snout for eating fry.

I can't tell by the pic of him but the snout looks more elongated and there is not yellow in the tail...

 

[lordofworms]

THATS PUDGY FOR SURE!!!!

I am sorry I didnt realize the slight diff. in snout and patterned tail but I just assumed because it was still a sub-adult it would 'round' out.

its strange to me that the LFS has/had no idea about this very same fish that they are selling, when I went in the other day just to pick up some water conditioner I saw TWO more labeled as corycats in a 10 gallon tank along with real corycats and some kuli loaches. :O
i mentioned this to them and they said "oh, yeah..its a chichild..its a breeder??"
*sigh* guess they dont care much.

so what does trhis do for my options, I will be reading up on this one now...but your saying it will prob. knock out any other fish I may put in there? lol so I DID buy a 120 gallon for one fish...lol

 

[JustOneMore20]

In that case, you could move your other fish to the 120g and then add more....and leave Pudgy in the 25g by herself. She could have the whole tank as her territory.

The Angel would love having a 120g to play in.

 

[sliderfish]

I like Kristin's idea

 

[lordofworms]

So I am still cycling my brand new 100+ tank to move my community fish into, and preparing to have Pudgy moved to my 25 gallon.
I happen to be talking toa friend about this site and the whole story about this 'one' peculiar 'extra' fish
when I get slammed with an offer i cant refuse...

"You like fish" this guy says?
"yeah, I just started but I think I am addicted"
"you got a tank?"
"Yeah, I just bought one, a big one"
"really? too bad..."
"why is that?" I ask..
"I got a 80 gallon that I want to get rid of with stand,light and aquaclear 110 filter, sellin it for 75$"
"75?? "

*jumps in car and runs to ATM to retrieve said 75$*

so now I have another huge tank with NO FORESIGHT into what the **** I am going to do with it, but **** I would have bought just the FILTER for 75$... its is very clean, and I have tested it for leaks (left it in basement floor near drain for a week, no leaks)

SOOOOOO if you were like me, some nobody who only recently got into this hobby....what would you do with it?
no saltwater tanks. (Havent really wanted to dive into that expense yet)
I am just interested in what a more experienced fishkeeper might have for ideas.

I am not impartial to wierd,exotic or 'themed' tanks.
Thanks everyone.